WWII: share of Japanese military deaths 1937-1945, by region

Although the Japanese invasion of China, known as the Second Sino-Japanese War, lasted for more than eight years, it was the battle against the United States and local defenses for control of the Philippines that resulted in the largest share of Japan's military losses in the Second World War. The Japanese invasion of the Philippines began on December 8, 1941, on the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese were able to take de facto control of the region by May 1942. Japan faced strong, underground resistance from locals in the two years that followed, until the U.S. military began its counteroffensive in the Leyte Gulf in October 1944, which continued until the war's end. Around 420,000 of the 490,000 Japanese deaths in the Philippines occurred during the Second Philippines Campaign (after Oct. 1944), although some estimates suggest that up to 80 percent of these deaths were due to starvation and malnutrition, as the Japanese supply lines became overstretched in the war's latter phase and failed to provide sufficient food and medicine to its forces.