Eighty Years Ago: Asia Pacific, May 30 – June 5, 1940

May 30, 1940: Possibility of German victory in Europe prompt US Senate Naval Affairs Committee to discuss likelihood that US Navy will have to fight war in Pacific and Atlantic at the same time. Photo: National Archives

May 31, 1940: Japan considers tighter media curbs to better manage public opinion as China war will soon enter its fourth year

June 1, 1940: Japanese career bureaucrat Kido Koichi is named Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and thus one of Emperor Hirohito’s closest advisors

June 2, 1940: Leading communist Zhou Enlai is back in China’s wartime capital of Chongqing after spending six months in Moscow

June 3, 1940: Japanese Army advances towards strategic Yangtze city of Yichang

June 4, 1940: Japanese forces encounter fierce Chinese resistance during advance towards city of Yichang

June 5, 1940: Japan mourns the death of Tokugawa Iesato, named ‘the last of the shoguns’

Categories: War

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