Japanese Micronesia
Early in the Great War all these islands were seized by Japan, which subsequently administered them through the Treaty of Versailles under a League of Nations mandate. At the outbreak of war Germany had various colonies to the north of Australia: Emperor William's Land, Bismarck Islands, Samoa and the Caroline Islands.
The Caroline Islands, Palau, Marianas and Marshall, were old Spanish possessions and were bought by Germany in 1899. Although since the fall of Tsingtau in November, 1914, Japan's part in the war has been apparently inconspicuous, she had nevertheless done much. The Japanese Government offered to co-operate with England for the protection of commerce in the search of enemy's ships, and on 03 October 1914 a Japanese squadron appeared before Joluit and occupied that place. The British cruisers Hampshire and Minotaur destroyed all communications between the islands and in both districts the German authorities surrendered without resistance.
The victorious Allied powers established the League of Nations in 1919, after defeating the German, Austrian and Ottoman (Turkish) empires in the First World War. The League's goal was ‘to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security’. Article 22 of the League's Covenant gave it the power to distribute former German and Turkish colonies to member nations to administer. Each former colony was known as a mandated territory, or mandate, while each administering nation was known as a mandatory.
Three classes of mandates existed; mandates A, B and C. Each territory was put into a class according to its stage of development and to which extent it was ready to becoming independent. Mandates were divided into three groups based on their geographical location and their level of political and economic development. Turkey's former Middle East territories became Class A mandates, while most of Germany's former African territories became Class B mandates.
Former German territories in the Pacific became Class C mandates. The League considered them to be the least developed and therefore ‘best administered under the laws of the mandatory as integral portions of its territory’. The territories which had a low population and were underdeveloped fell into "mandates C" and where handed over directly to the countries that had occupied them.
The whole idea behind the mandates was that they would eventually be incorporated by the mandatory power. Class C mandates, such as Micronesia, were particularly dependent upon the mandatory and were to be administered as an integral part of that power. In 1919 the Allied Council had before them forms of Mandates which had been prepared by Lord Milner and circulated by Mr. Lloyd George. President Wilson said that there was "some criticisms to make against Lord Milner’s proposals. In his view they hardly provided adequate protection for the native population; they did not provide sufficiently for the open door; and the Class “C” Mandates did not make provision for missionary activities."
The South Pacific Mandate consisted of islands in the north Pacific Ocean that had been part of German New Guinea within the German colonial empire until they were occupied by Japan. Japan treated its new Mandates as an addition to its territory, which went against the Mandate system.
In theory, mandates were supervised by the League's Permanent Mandates Commission. Like other mandatory nations, Japan was required to submit annual reports to the Commission and fulfil specific obligations towards Micronesia's inhabitants. But in practice, the Commission was unable to exert any real control over mandatory nations. In many cases, mandates were regarded as little more than colonies. Japan, like other mandatory nations, was left to govern Micronesia more or less as it saw fit.
The underlying causes of the outbreak of the war in the Pacific relate to Japan's desire to effectively compete with the industrialized nations of western Europe and the United States. As an island nation, Japan had very few natural resources of her own and, therefore, looked elsewhere for raw materials to supply her growing industrial base. Japan felt that Asia and the western Pacific islands were inside her spheres of influence, and resented the presence of other colonial powers such as Britain, France, Holland, and the United States.
By the late 1930s, Japan began to build up its military on Micronesian islands, until then used primarily to fuel the Japanese civilian economy. The Japanese built a constellation of military facilities: airfields, harbors, ammunition depots, gun emplacements, barracks, and fuel storage facilities. Micronesia was to be a major staging area for planned offensive air and naval operations. Truk (now Chuuk, Caroline Islands) was readied as a base for amphibious landings on Tarawa and Makin (Gilbert Islands).
The Japanese Fourth Fleet, was headquartered at Truk - the "Pearl of the Carolines" - in the Caroline Islands. This island command was called a Base Force Command in Japanese naval parlance. In mid-September 1943, the Japanese high command, without letting Admiral Nimitz in on the secret, modified their "Z" Operation Plan and drew a new an outer boundary line around what they considered their "vital defensive area." The new line encompassed only the Kuriles, the Marianas, and the Carolines in the Central Pacific, including the Japanese "Rock of Gibraltar," Truk Atoll in the Carolines.
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