The Japanese defend Iwo Jima, a tiny…

New Caledonia becomes a Free French outpost in 1944; US forces use the island as a base against the Japanese.

In late March 1944, a US amphibious forces takes the Japanese air base at Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands.

In July 1944, Roosevelt overrules the American naval command’s plan to send Nimitz’s Central Pacific forces northwestward toward Japan.

Following the recapture of Guam in early August, Roosevelt instead orders Nimitz to turn southwestward and link up with MacArthur for a full-scale assault on the Philippines.

Japan halts the British drive into Burma in early 1944, then stage a counteroffensive against the British in India, besieging the British at Imphal.

Construction of the Ledo Road continues.

Stilwell, in early 1944, begins moving toward the strategic town of Myitkyina, the road’s northernmost terminus.

Japanese forces in China gain control of the remaining railroad running south from Hangzhou to Guangzhou during the first half of 1944; during the same time, they seize the airfields in the southeast used by American volunteer fliers to attack the Japanese.

The RAF-supplied Britons at Imphal break the Japanese siege in July 1944.

Thailand’s Pibul Songgram government resigns in July of 1944.

By July 1944, MacArthur’s forces have captures almost all of New Guinea.

Stilwell, with superior air support, rolls back a northward offensive by the Japanese and takes Myitkyina in August 1944.

Nimitz’s fleet arrives from the Central Pacific in late August and moves to take the Palau Islands off the southern Philippines.

In September, MacArthur’s forces sieze Morotai in the Moluccas.

The Japanese fleet attempts, unsuccessfully, to destroy transports landing US troops on the island of Leyte in the October 23—25 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf.

For the first time, Japan employs the young volunteer pilots of its Kamikaze (“divine wind”) Corps, whose members purposely crash their bomb-laden planes into Allied vessels.

In less than a week, the Americans drive the Japanese forces from southern and northeastern Leyte, but for the next two months, the opposing armies struggle mightily in bloody jungle clashes.

In November 1944, US fliers based in the Marianas initiate the strategic bombing of Kapanese airfields, industrial targets and naval installlations.

Increasing disagreement between Generalissimo Jiang Jeishei and General Stilwell, including Stilwell’s public criticism of Kiang, results in deficiencies in China’s defenses and Stilwell’s recall in the latter part of 1944.

Japanese domination of the land route from Korea to Malaya cuts China in half by December 1944.

General William Joseph Slim leads the British 14th Army from into Burma in December 1944.

One corps moves north to sieze Kalewa on the Chidwin River, another presses southwards through western Burma.

Organized Japanese resistance on Leyte ends by late December.

Troop transports move the US Sixth Army through Surigao Strait into the Sulu and Mindanao seas in early January 1945.

The British and Chinese complete the 470 mile (750 kilometer) Ledo Road on January 7, 1945.

The British 14th Army in Burma joins up with the US-led Chinese forces to open the road to supply traffic.

Following three days of naval and air bombardment, US forces under General Douglas MacArthur invade Lingayen, Luzon on January 9, 1945, forcing the Japanese to fall back to the mountainous north and east.

Additional US troops land in western and southern Luzon, then combine with all invasion forces to converge on Manila.

Simultaneously, US paratroopers capture the fortress of Corregidor.

MacArthur’s troops enter Manila on February 4.

The Americans launch a carrier-based air armada against the Japanese naval base at Truk on February 17, 1944, destroying about 250 Japanese planes and 200,000 US tons of merchant shipping while rendering Truk itself unusable.

Following air and naval bombardment, 20,000 US Marines invade Saipan on June 15, 1944, soon followed by 105,000 more troops.

Within three days, the assault splits Saipan’s 32,000 Japanese defenders in half.

A mobile Japanese task force arrives on June 19 to effect the destructio on the US fleet supporting the invasion.

The ensuing Battle of the Philippine Sea is the war’s biggest carrier engagement thus far.

US submarines sink two Japanese carriers, torpedo aircraft sink a third, and in what American veterans will later call “the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”, US aircraft destroy over 350 Japanese planes.

In November 1944, US fliers based in the Marianas initiate the strategic bombing of Japanese airfields, industrial targets and naval installations.

Partisan resistance weakens Nazi control in France and Yugoslavia.

Standard Oil of California had sold shares in its Saudi Arabian concession to the Texas Oil Company in 1936.

In 1944, the company operating the concession, California-Arabian Standard Oil Company, takes the name Arabian-American Oil Company, or Aramco.

Communal riots increase in India.

Talks between Jinnah and Gandhi in 1944 prove as futile as negotiations between Gandhi and the viceroy, Lord Wavell.

As violence between Hindus and Muslims continues to escalate, the British begin to regard as unavoidable the creation of a separate Muslim state.