Talk:Pacific Ocean theater of World War II

Page creation

By way of explanation, I created this article (like the parallel South West Pacific Theatre of World War II) because the Pacific Ocean Areas (command) article deals with a Allied formation/organisation. That arrangement was inadequate for the many links pointing to it, beacuse it didn't deal with the the Japanese/Axis side of the story. This article is intended to deal with the various campaigns and battles, including the Axis side of them. Grant65 | Talk 08:25, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I see where you are coming from but the current setup is problematic -- it's based only on what USA considered to be "Pacific Ocean theater" which for example does not include Hawaii.

Probably the page should just redirect to Pacific War.

Eleland 18:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The Pacific Ocean Areas did include Hawaii; I'm not sure what you mean there. Yes, its what the Allies considered to be the Pacific Ocean theater, but the Japanese command structure was similar, with Yamamoto and the IJN being Nimitz's direct opponent. Whereas Japanese forces in Southern Asia were controlled by the Japanese Army's Southern Expeditionary Army, under Hisaichi Terauchi, in Saigon. Terauchi was the direct opponent of both MacArthur (SW Pacific) and Mountbatten (SE Asia). Grant | Talk 02:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I misread a diagram there.

The other reason I thought the Pacific Ocean Areas did not include Hawaii is that Pearl Harbour isn't counted in the "Pacific Ocean Theater", which doesn't make very much sense to me.

I think I get the idea, though. It's the Pacific Ocean itself and the Pacific islands, as opposed to Pacific ocean countries like China. OK, this makes sense.

However it still needs to include Pearl, and start in 1941, because if the Pearl Harbour attack didn't happen in the Pacific Ocean Theatre of WW2 then where did it happen?

Eleland 16:53, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The reason why I excluded Pearl Harbor is that it came before the formation of the Allied POA command. Having said that, we are talking about a geographical entity here, so maybe it should be included. Grant | Talk 03:37, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Renovating article

Instead of merging this article into the Pacific War, I recommend this article be altered to "Central Pacific Theater" to reference the operations of the U.S. Navy in 1943 and onwards. The island-hopping campaign was the original goal of American Pacific Strategy, and as such should have a separate article.UNC Samurai (talk) 18:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I support this article and the South West Pacific theater of World War II as a means of organizing links to naval engagements of the dual allied advances across the Pacific. This article contains links to Chester Nimitz's trail through the Marshalls and Marianas while the South West Pacific Theater contains links to Douglas MacArthur's path through New Guinea and the Philippines. The separation would better follow the respective command areas and lines of advance if the Guadalcanal campaign and subsequent Solomon Islands campaign links were moved there from this article as you suggest. Although the Solomons lie very close to the area boundary, they were clearly an exposed flank of MacArthur's advance. I intend to move those links if no one objects. Thewellman (talk) 02:28, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I would support division of the article into smaller areas of describing operations. The Pacific is an awfully large part of the planet's surface and articles that seek to summarise such long and wide-scoped subject areas invariably become difficult to compose and follow, as for example the World War II article itself. The Pacific Ocean Theatre is synonymous with the "Pacific War", so there the introduction only needs to say that it was considered a single theatre of war.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 02:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal

New to the topic, I found the existence of these articles with similar titles and content confusing. The content often overlaps and makes distinctions as to areas of operation and control that don't amplify how the war was fought and commanded, but confused me. They all point to different "parent" articles striving to organize the information and refer to different theaters of operation within the Pacific war as fought by the Allies. One refers to Japanese forces. Some link titles sound alike but link to a "theater" (e.g., South West Pacific Theater) and some link to a "command" (e.g., Southwest Pacific Area). Perhaps there is a need for relabeling of badly named links in those areas.

1 Pacific Ocean theater of World War II (This article) Refers to both Allied and Japanese forces. Lists "Major campaigns and battles", but creates two new theaters in doing so: the "Central Pacific Theater" and the "North Pacific Theater." These should refer to the Central Pacific area and North Pacific area, whose commanders are listed in Pacific Ocean Areas (command).

2 Pacific Theater of Operations Describes the physical area of the Pacific. Displays the same map as Pacific Ocean Areas (command). Names two other, independent, theaters of operations as:

• China Burma India Theater of World War II
• South-East Asian theatre of World War II

(Is it upper or lower case "Theatre"?)

To further confuse things:

• Command areas of the Pacific War lists not two but three Allied Theaters of Operation:
  • Pacific Ocean Theater (this article)
  • South West Pacific Theater
  • South-East Asian Theater

• Pacific Ocean Areas (command) Links to the Pacific Theater of Operations, displays the same map as the Pacific Theater of Operations, and links to these theaters of operation:
  • South West Pacific theatre of World War II
  • Southeast Pacific Area (links to Panama Sea Frontier??)

Not a candidate for merger, but of pertinent interest, the article Pacific War refers to these theaters of operation and commands:

Theatres:

• Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO)
• China Burma India Theater (CBI)

Commands:

• Pacific Ocean Areas
• Southwest Pacific Area

This article ought to also refer to these theaters:

• South West Pacific theatre of World War II
• China Burma India Theater of World War II
• South-East Asian theatre of World War II

I propose the following implied hierarchy of articles:

• Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II (consolidating #1 and #2 above)
  • Pacific Ocean Areas (command) (Nimitz' command)
    • Pacific Ocean theater of World War II
  • South West Pacific Area (command) (MacArthur's command)
    • South West Pacific theatre of World War II

And related to the above:

• China Burma India Theater of World War II
• South-East Asian theatre of World War II

Maybe someone can make more sense of this than I can. -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 18:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Concur--Ndunruh (talk) 14:59, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Remember also, that under Nimitz' command there were three sub-commands: South Pacific, Central Pacific, and Northern Pacific. Also, in early 1942 two commands existed in the SouthWest Pacific- ABDA and the ANZAC command. Cla68 (talk) 00:20, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Btphelps, Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II duplicates the functions of Pacific War and Pacific Theater of Operations.

Similarly, China Burma India Theater of World War II refers to internal US terminology: China (under Chiang Kai Shek) was a separate Allied command to Burma and India which were under the South East Asia Command (Mountbatten).

PTO and CBI are "umbrella" terms used almost exclusively by the US military/historians and did not reflect operational or command realities

Otherwise, I think you make valid points and what you have proposed is fine. A lot of the confusion is caused by the number of countries involved and the different terminologies used by their respective militaries and historians. Grant | Talk 05:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

A problem with the above scheme is that its Allied-centric. The Japanese obviously didn't use the same command structure as the Allies did, so it's not really appropriate to say that South West Pacific theatre of World War II (which I think is generic enough to be applicable to both sites) is subsidiary to South West Pacific Area (command) and that Pacific Ocean theater of World War II is subsidiary to Pacific Ocean Areas (command). I agree with Grant's comment that Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II would duplicate the Pacific War article. I'd suggest that the articles about the various Allied commands be edited to ensure that they're only about that command (eg, the area it covered, who was in charge, how the headquarters operated, etc) and the articles about the areas in which combat took place cover both sides. Nick-D (talk) 08:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

If anyone wants to take on this merger effort, please don't wait on me. I'm not able to right now. -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 09:24, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Nick, I know what you're saying about this scheme being Allied-centric, but it is resolved to an extent by the fact that only one country played a significant role on the Axis side and the major divide in command was between Combined Fleet HQ and the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office. (FWIW the army sub-commands were four "General Armies" [ army groups ]: Southern Expeditionary Army (southern China, South Asia, South East Asia, and the South Pacific), Kwantung Army (northeast China) and China Expeditionary Army (central China). So the same history should be covered by Imperial Japanese Navy of World War II and IJA in WW2. Grant | Talk 15:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that the IJN also had regional fleets, but don't know all that much about how it was organised. Nick-D (talk) 08:21, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I would recommend merging all of these articles and then dividing them into the regional sections, and if we want to have the articles we have now, we link to them from their subheading in the main article. Since this article is titled Pacific Ocean theater of World War II, I assumed it would have everything about the the Pacific war, but I was looking for information about the Philippines, which is part of the South West Pacific Theater. Also in the article naming, the different articles tend to go back and forth between using "theatre" and "theater", which is minor but should be addressed at the same time. Tannermyoung (talk) 16:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd say we should merge, the coexistence of two articles is confusing. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 14:49, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The PTO is an exclusively US term for their organization in that part of the Second World War going in in the Pacific. In the same way as the European Theater of Operations (ETO or ETOUSA) is not the same as the European Theatre of World War II (i think that in the latter "Theatre" should possibly be all lower case, but I digress). To this end they are different articles. The PTO should cover the definition and organization of US activities in the Pacific, while the Pacific Ocean theatre should discuss the war itself with respect to all parties in the Pacific and areas bordering it. To this end the articles should not merge. However the PTO should be checked to see that it sticks to US organization and activities at a strategic level while mentioning the campaigns it was incolved in and let this article describe the flow of the war. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:25, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

So, if I understand well, the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II would actually be the equivalent of Pacific War and should perhaps be merged with it ? Or, otherwise, it would be a matter of content, meaning that the current article would have to be rewritten? Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 15:49, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The article is terrible and needs to be rewritten in any case. The Pacific Theater of Operations consisted of five areas: the North, Central, South, Southwest and Southeast Pacific Areas. It wasn't the only theater in the war against Japan; the other was the China-Burma-India Theater. The North, Central and South Pacific Areas came under the command of CINCPAC, Admiral Nimitz. The Southeast Pacific Area was commanded by COMINCH, Admiral King. In the early days, separate article was created to cover the command arrangements, which are historical entities, and the campaigns in that theatre, which are creations of the wiki-editors. The proposed hierarchy muddles this. The hierarchy probably should be:

• Campaigns:
  • Pacific Ocean theater of World War II
  • South West Pacific theatre of World War II
  • China theater of World War II
  • South-East Asian theatre of World War II

• Commands:
  • Pacific Ocean Areas (command) (Nimitz' command)
  • South West Pacific Area (command) (MacArthur's command)
  • China Burma India Theater of World War II (Stilwell's command)
  • South East Asia Command (Mountbatten's command)
  • American-British-Dutch-Australian Command

Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:09, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

But what shall we do of Pacific Theater of Operations then ? Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 09:20, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I suggest that it cover what we've said here. That it was a American creation. That unlike ETO, it had no actual administrative existence. That it was divided into five parts. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I had read your message a tad too quickly. Your proposal sounds like a good idea. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 14:36, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

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