The British Empire in The pacific War

The British Empire occupies an ambivalent place in the history of the Pacific War. At first, it might have been thought that the Empire would have played a major role in the war. After all, at the outbreak of the Second World War the British Empire, with 500 million subjects, was the world’s superpower, covering a quarter of the world’s land surface. In the Asia-Pacific region, Britain ruled India, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, British Borneo, Hong Kong and a series of small island colonies across the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The British dominions, Australia and New Zealand, had vital interests in the Pacific, while Canada had a large Pacific coastline. Clearly, the British Empire ought to have been a major protagonist in any Pacific conflict. But barely six months into the Pacific War, the British Empire had been almost eliminated from the field. Eighteen months later, when the British Empire had re-established its influence in the Pacific War, its effort paled almost into insignificance beside that of the United States. How then could Britain and its empire re-build some sort of standing in the post-war Pacific? I will be exploring this important question, but first it is necessary to note that the British Empire consisted of several different components. Some parts of the empire were colonies that were directly ruled or administered by Britain. The largest and most valuable colony was India, which had a very substantial army, but with mainly British officers. Some elements of the Empire consisted of protectorates over which Britain exercised control, usually in the area of international affairs. The dominions, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and in a special case, Ireland, were self-governing members of the Empire. Technically they were members of a body known as the British Commonwealth of Nations. Their armed forces could only be deployed with the permission of their own governments. But the dominions still considered themselves to be part of the British Empire and during the war their forces usually operated under British strategic direction. The prime exception was the direction of Australian forces after 1942. Before the Second World War, Britain failed to prepare adequately to defend its empire in the Asia-Pacific region. Partly this was caused by the fact that Britain had been weakened by the First World War and no longer had the capacity to spread its armed forces across the globe. Defence in the Far East was built around the so-called Singapore strategy. Britain started to build a huge naval base at Singapore, to which it would send a major fleet in time of threat in the Far East. There

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