Your favorite Pacific battle / campaign to study?

[Oreo]

OK, I know I'm going to forget some, so there will be an "other" category. Keep in mind for this poll we are not talking merely about air combat but also ground and naval combat as well. I will put as many as I can remember. Thus the category "Solomons" would include air combat, ground combat, and naval combat in that area-- all that went with it. I know this poll can't be perfect, but please just play along.

And it may take me a few minutes to get all the options listed, for all you who like to get excited about me "forgetting" to post the options.

[Oreo]

I hope everybody carefully reads all the options before voting. Doolittle Raid should be counted under Japan home islands.

I chose Solomons as my favorite. The exploits of the Cactus Air Force are legendary, and things were really in the balance around the end of '42.

[machine shop tom]

I'm voting for "Other", the Battle of Leyte Gulf, because my dad was involved in it. It may be classified in Phillipines (late), but since it was such a huge battle with many facets, I'm going to separate it out.

tom

[Amsel]

Both of my grandpas' were in the Marine Corps during the Pacific campaign. They were at Iwo Jima. But the most interesting battle to me was Okinawa. Okinawa was one of the most massive and vicious battles in mankinds history. It forced the presidents hand to use the nuke in fact, which was a hard decision to make. Looking at the casualty counts on Okinawa they realized that an invasion of mainland Japan would produce 1,000,000 plus KIA possibly.

[syscom3]

New Guinea and the Solomons.

So many battles and stories for nearly the whole war.

[Oreo]

Looks like a lot of different interests! Thanks for voting!

[Oreo]

Originally Posted by machine shop tom

I'm voting for "Other", the Battle of Leyte Gulf, because my dad was involved in it. It may be classified in Phillipines (late), but since it was such a huge battle with many facets, I'm going to separate it out.

tom

Well, I was considering Leyte Gulf to be included under Phillipines, late, but you explained yourself well.

[Capt. Vick]

I would have to say the battle of Midway for three reasons that I find fascinating.

1) That such a monumental loss to the seemingly unstoppable Japanese should happen so soon after Pearl Harbor (6 months) is just awesome and I think sometimes that aspect is overlooked.

2) The fact that the whole battle seemed to play out like a chess match. By that I mean intelligence, deception, intuition and luck (both bad and good) seem to play greater parts in this battle then the brute force, slugging matches that characterized later Pacific theater engagements.

3) Arguable the under-dog won. I guess they don't call it the "Miracle at Midway" for nothing.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

None actually, but since I am moving to Alaska I really am getting interested in the fighting there.

[Vraciu]

I chose New Guinea because of fantastic people which fought there (mjr Ed Warner, commander of 90.BS for example).

[wh1skea]

I chose Open Water, mainly because my main subject of study is American submarine warfare in WW2. Granted, I could have picked ANY of those choices, but I felt Open Water fit best (was half tempted to pick Japanese Home Islands).

[wilbur1]

I went with the solomans, just seems very interesting for some reason

[comiso90]

Guadalcanal or Leyete

[B-17engineer]

Okinawa....

[freebird]

Seems I'm the first CW or UK poster. I guess that Malaysia & Singapore got lumped in with Burma & SE Asia? {I think there was some kind of minor skirmish there?} But all the Island groups are separate?

The battles in Singapore & Malaysia are more interesting, Burma is like watching a train wreck....