Eighty Years Ago: Asia Pacific, April 17 – 23, 1941

April 17, 1941: US Ambassador to Tokyo Joseph Grew warns in message to Washington that a powerful group in the Japanese Army believes ‘the time is now ripe for a move southward while Japan’s position is still strong’

April 18, 1941: Admiral Husband Kimmel, commander in chief of the United States Pacific Fleet, calls for Marine Corps defense battalion to be stationed on Wake island midway between Honolulu and Tokyo

April 19, 1941: Britain, stretched thinly across the globe, gives up the Yangtze Patrol, decommissioning its last remaining vessel, the HMS Falcon

April 20, 1941: Japanese forces make landing near Fuzhou in southeast China to tighten blockade of Chinese enemy

April 21, 1941: Japanese troops advance toward city of Fuzhou in southeast China

April 22, 1941: Japanese forces seize the big southeast Chinese city of Fuzhou

April 23, 1941: After Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke returns from visits to Germany and the Soviet Union, influential circles in Tokyo call on him to travel to the United States to defuse Pacific crisis

Categories: War

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