WWII Pacific Theater - Second Sino-Japanese War

This section of the exhibit focuses on the Second Sino-Japanese War which began with Japan’s full-scale invasion of China in July 1937 and continued until it merged with the broader Pacific War following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 when the United States declared war on Japan. Geographically, the conflict spanned across the Chinese mainland from the northeastern provinces of Manchuria, which was already under Japanese occupation since 1931 to the Nationalist capital at Nanjing. The people at the center of this section include the Japanese Imperial Army commanders, Chinese Nationalist (Kuomintang) forces under Chiang Kai-shek, Chinese Communist forces under Mao Zedong, and the millions of civilians who faced the Japanese occupation head on.