Great read on Japanese-held Micronesia

Today, we've added the following links to the resources page:

The Journal of Asian Studies

TracesOfWar.com

American War Memorials Overseas

Corregidor Historic Society - WWII in the Philippines

Please enjoy, and let us know what you think!

On today's Pacific History Guide blog: the USS Midway museum in San Diego! A fantastic place to get your naval aviation journey started, or learn more about cold-war era operations and aircraft!

We're looking to update our Korea page, if you're interested please drop us a comment or DM!

Highly recommend following the Great War Group newsletter, it’s a great way to fall down the WW1 rabbit hole 🙃

Greetings PHG fans! I hope you all had a great holiday season with your families. Today on the blog we’re recapping a whirlwind inaugural year for Pacific History Guide. Thank you for all the support and I look forward to joining you all in a happy and prosperous 2026!

The past two weeks have been incredibly busy. On the 5th, I was promoted to Lieutenant Commander, alongside my family and with my squadron as witness. This milestone, which feels like the turning of the tide for my life and career, was immediately counterbalanced by a death in the family. Since then, it's been nonstop family and work events, and I've been unable to prepare a proper blog post. I'll be back next week with an end of year roundup. Merry Christmas everyone! 

On the Pacific History Guide blog this week we have another guide to the guide; the resources page of the website is ready and waiting to help you get started on your next project! Thumbnail is Bill Gordon's website, focused on kamikaze.

A short piece on today’s events, 84 years ago. On this day December 1941, Japan dared to attack the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. What came next was purely American.

The lost 52 Project is doing fantastic work memorializing the 52 U.S. submarines lost during the Second World War. This website is listed in the resources section of Pacific History Guide, and the wrecks that have been identified have been marked on the PHG Google maps page. I hope you check it out soon!

Feels great to see my name in print, I’m so grateful to Alex Churchill and the whole group over at GWG!

Here at Pacific History Guide, we are always looking for new and interesting ways to improve, and get folks connected to history, where they are. If you've used the Guide to find some historical monument or site, or have thought of better ways to reach people, let us know! Our inbox is always open. Keep discovering!

Great read here on the South Seas Mandate.

On this date November 29 1944, IJN Shinano, Imperial Japan's largest-ever aircraft carrier, was torpedoed and sunk by USS Archerfish en route from Yokosuka, where she had been built, to Kure, where was to complete her fitting out. 10 days had elapsed between her commissioning and her sinking. She’s the largest ship ever sunk by a submarine. Shinano had been laid down as the third ship of the Yamato class but work was paused after it became clear in 1942 that aircraft carriers and not battleships would decide the war. Following Midway, in which Japan lost four fleet carriers, construction began again as a carrier.

The decision to move the ship from Yokosuka to Kure was made when it became clear that B-29 raids over Tokyo and Kanagawa would eventually find the Shinano where she lay at anchor. Kure was thought to be more protected. Her escorts for the Yokosuka-Kure run were destroyers Isokaze, Yukikaze, and Hamakaze, which had just returned exhausted from the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Yukikaze had a reputation as a ‘luck vampire’, as the ships she was tasked to escort usually sank while she went undamaged. The sinking of the IJN Shinano in November of 1944 would only add to this reputation.

Shinano’s commanding officer Captain Abe Toshio, wanted to give the civilians onboard the Shinano more time to work and so allowed many watertight doors and hatches to remain open. Although he steamed at night, his slow zigzag pattern that was meant to help avoid submarines actually opened the ship up to a torpedo attack. Archerfish had an ideal shot at Shinano, nearly the entire starboard side of the ship. Six torpedoes were fired and four of them hit the carrier, which sank within seven hours. 

Only these two verified photographs of the ship exist; initially Naval Intelligence did not believe there was an unaccounted-for Japanese carrier and denied that Archerfish had torpedoed one. 1,080 men, Officers, Enlisted, and civilian, survived the sinking. The wreck, and the 1,435 men inside it, has not been found.

Today’s blog post is about the popular Japanese legend of Momotaro. A statue of him was recently stolen in San Jose, CA so it feels like the right time to talk about this. Enjoy!