How did the Second World War in the Asia-Pacific develop?

Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 · Paper 1 Section B, Depth Studies Syllabus: 2027 and 2028 Depth study E: The Second World War in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, 1939 to c.1945 Key Question 2 of four

This is the Key Question that asks how a war began in one ocean and spread across it. Cambridge does not ask you whether Japan was right, or who was to blame. It asks how the war developed: how relations between two states worsened until one attacked the other, what that attack achieved, why the attacker then won everything it attacked for six months, and why it stopped winning. Four focus points, four stages, in that order.

This Depth Study is new and there is almost no past-paper practice for it. Until the 2023 series Cambridge offered seven Depth Studies, including China, South Africa, and the Israelis and Palestinians. Those three were withdrawn and the Second World War took their place, examinable for the first time in 2024. Across every Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 question paper read for these notes, from 2018 to 2024, exactly fourteen papers contain this Depth Study, and all fourteen are from 2024: seven Paper 1 papers and seven Paper 4 papers. Of those, six set anything on this Key Question. That is the whole record. It is not a large enough sample to predict from, and section 3 says what it does and does not support. If a revision guide offers you a bank of past questions on the war in the Asia-Pacific, check the dates on them, because before 2024 Cambridge could not have set one.

What this file covers: the four focus points as four arguments, the specified content that sits under them, the boundary with the three neighbouring Key Questions including the one place the boundary is genuinely contested, every fact Cambridge itself has printed on this content in its own mark schemes, and a list at the end of what has deliberately been left out.

A note on how quotations are rendered. Cambridge prints the region as "Asia" and "Pacific" joined by a dash, and prints date ranges with a dash. This site uses an ordinary hyphen in "Asia-Pacific" and writes ranges as "1939 to c.1945". Nothing else in any quoted syllabus text or mark-scheme text has been altered.

1. What the syllabus actually asks

The full printed title, which is longer than most versions of it

The syllabus contents page does not name the Depth Studies individually; it lists "Depth studies" and a page number. The full title is printed identically in three places: the content overview, the list at the head of the Depth studies section, and the heading of the Depth Study itself. It is:

Depth study E: The Second World War in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, 1939 to c.1945

The date range is part of the title. Shortened forms that stop at "Asia-Pacific" circulate widely, including in this site's own Paper 1 marking notes, and they cost you two pieces of information. The 1939 start means the Depth Study opens in Europe, more than two years before anything in this Key Question happens. The c.1945 end, with the "c." for circa, means Cambridge has deliberately left the finish soft, because Key Question 4 runs on into occupation and war crimes trials after the fighting stopped.

The Key Question and the focus points, verbatim

This is the wording printed in the Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 syllabus for 2027 and 2028, in the Depth studies section. Learn the Key Question itself, and learn the focus points, because Cambridge builds questions straight out of them and has already done so three times.

Key Question 2

How did the Second World War in the Asia-Pacific develop?

Focus points

- How did US-Japanese relationships deteriorate?
- How successful was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor?
- Why were the Japanese successful in the initial stages of the war?
- Why was the Battle of Midway a turning point?

The specified content, which is printed once and is not divided

Depth study E prints one list headed Specified content, covering all four Key Questions together. There is no separate list per Key Question, and the syllabus never says which bullet belongs to which. That is the single most important structural fact on this page, because it means the boundary between this file and its three siblings is read off the wording, not handed to you. Here is the whole list, verbatim, with the bullets that belong to this Key Question marked in bold.

• Extent of German conquest of Europe 1940:
• invasion of and surrender of France; Vichy government in France
• Dunkirk
• German plans to invade Britain (Operation Sea Lion)
• the Battle of Britain and its consequences
• Operation Barbarossa and initial Nazi successes
• German defeat at Stalingrad and its impact
• The reasons for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and its consequences
• Reasons for initial Japanese military successes in Southeast Asia by early 1942:
• Case study: Malaya and Singapore
• The Battle of Midway and its impact
• The impact of bombing on peoples' lives and morale in Europe:
• the Blitz
• Allied bombing of German cities
• The impact of Japanese control on people's lives:
• Case study: Malaya and Singapore
• The impact of Nazi control in occupied Europe:
• Case study: Poland, including circumstances leading to the Holocaust and its impact
• The methods and effectiveness of resistance movements in Malaya and in France
• The Allied invasion of Sicily and victory over German forces in Italy
• The collapse and surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945:
• the D-Day landings and the advance to Germany
• the Russian advance from the East
• The reasons for the defeat of Japan:
• the battles of Guadalcanal and Okinawa
• the US strategy of island-hopping
• the bombing of Japan
• the decision to use the atomic bomb and its consequences
• Consolidation of victory:
• the Allied occupations and control of Germany and Japan
• the war crimes trials in Nuremberg and Tokyo

Three bold bullets for four focus points, and the list runs in the same order as the Key Questions. Two things follow.

Focus point 1 has no specified content of its own. There is no bullet on US-Japanese relations before the attack. The deterioration is folded into "The reasons for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor". Do not read that as permission to skip it: Cambridge has set the deterioration directly, at 4 marks, at 6 marks and at 15 marks, in three different 2024 papers. Section 4 is built entirely from what those mark schemes credit, because the syllabus gives you nothing to build from.

"Case study: Malaya and Singapore" is printed twice, once under your bullet on initial Japanese successes and once under Key Question 3's bullet on the impact of Japanese control. Same place, two different questions. Yours is why the Japanese won it. Key Question 3's is what happened to the people living there afterwards. Section 2 sets out the line.

What Cambridge means by these three layers

The syllabus defines them in the subject content introduction, and the definitions are worth having exactly:

- Key questions define the over-arching issues.
- Focus points identify the issues that enable candidates to gain an understanding of the key question.
- Specified content provides guidance on what needs to be studied for each key question.

Read the middle one carefully. Focus points are not four topics to revise and forget. They are the routes into the argument, and three of the four here already carry a scale inside them: "how successful", "why were", "why was". Each is a finished 10-mark title.

That last row is the honest state of the record and section 7 does not pretend otherwise.

2. Where this Key Question stops, and the other three start

All four Key Questions in this Depth Study are being written as separate files on this site. Because the specified content is undivided, the boundaries below are read off the syllabus wording and confirmed against the way Cambridge itself paired questions in 2024.

Key Question 1, "How did the Second World War in Europe develop?", owns Europe. France and Vichy, Dunkirk, Operation Sea Lion, the Battle of Britain, Operation Barbarossa, Stalingrad. Its file is dse1-how-did-the-second-world-war-in-europe-develop.md. Nothing German is yours. If your answer is about Hitler, you are in the wrong file.

Key Question 3, "What was the impact of war on civilian populations in Europe and the Asia-Pacific?", owns civilians in both theatres. The Blitz, Allied bombing of German cities, the impact of Japanese control on people's lives, Nazi control in occupied Poland including the Holocaust, and resistance movements in Malaya and in France. Its file is dse3-what-was-the-impact-of-war-on-civilian-populations-in-europe-and-the-asia-pacific.md.

Key Question 4, "How did the Allies achieve victory over the Axis powers?", owns the end. Sicily and Italy, D-Day and the advance to Germany, the Russian advance from the East, Guadalcanal, Okinawa, island-hopping, the bombing of Japan, the atomic bomb, the occupations, Nuremberg and Tokyo. Its file is dse4-how-did-the-allies-achieve-victory-over-the-axis-powers.md.

The line that separates you from Key Question 4 is a line in time, and it runs through one battle:

1. Key Question 2 runs from the deterioration of relations to the Battle of Midway
2. Key Question 4 runs from Guadalcanal to the surrenders and the trials
3. so Midway is the last event that is yours and the first American offensive is not

The line that separates you from Key Question 3 is not a line in time at all. It runs through the same places at the same moment:

1. Key Question 2 asks why the Japanese army won Malaya and Singapore
2. Key Question 3 asks what the Japanese occupation then did to the people of Malaya and Singapore
3. so the same case study answers two different questions and the mark schemes for them share almost no material

Applied to the cases that catch people out:

Where the syllabus places the atomic bombings

This is the overlap most likely to send a candidate into the wrong file, so it is worth settling with evidence rather than instinct. The bombings could plausibly belong here, because they are events in the Asia-Pacific war; to Key Question 3, because they killed civilians; or to Key Question 4, because they preceded the surrender.

The syllabus places them in Key Question 4, and it is not ambiguous. The specified content bullet reads:

The reasons for the defeat of Japan:
- the battles of Guadalcanal and Okinawa
- the US strategy of island-hopping
- the bombing of Japan
- the decision to use the atomic bomb and its consequences

"The decision to use the atomic bomb and its consequences" is a sub-bullet of "The reasons for the defeat of Japan", which is the specified content for Key Question 4's third focus point, "Why were the Allies able to achieve victory over Japan?". It sits inside a list of Allied offensive operations, between island-hopping and the consolidation of victory. It is nowhere near your three bullets, which stop at Midway.

Cambridge's own papers confirm it. In the June 2024 paper 0470/11, a 10-mark question on the atomic bomb was set as Question 18(c), in the same question as denazification and the D-Day landings, which are Key Question 4 content throughout. In the June 2024 Paper 4 paper 0470/43, the atomic bombings were set as Question 10(b), paired with island-hopping. Both times, Key Question 4 company.

So this file contains no material on Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and it prints no casualty figures for them. Cambridge does print such figures in its mark schemes, and they belong in the Key Question 4 file with the attribution attached. Casualty figures for the Asia-Pacific theatre, and for the atomic bombings above all, are contested outside the exam room; the only safe practice is to write what Cambridge prints, name where Cambridge printed it, and write nothing where Cambridge prints nothing. This page does that throughout.

3. The whole past-paper record, and what it will and will not tell you

How this paper is marked is not repeated here. Every level ladder, both of the rules Cambridge changed for the 2024 series, the mark split across parts (a), (b) and (c), and the mistakes examiner reports name every year are set out in this site's How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. Read those first. This section is only about which questions have existed on this content.

What exists

Across the Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 question papers from 2018 to 2024, Depth study E appears in fourteen papers, every one of them from 2024: seven Paper 1 papers, and seven Paper 4 papers. On Paper 1 it is always the last slot, Question 17 and Question 18, in all seven. On Paper 4 it is always Question 9 and Question 10, in all seven. Zero papers before 2024 contain it, because the Depth Study did not exist.

Paper 1, all seven 2024 papers

Three papers out of seven. Nine question parts in total, worth 20 marks each time.

Two patterns are visible in the seven, and both are worth knowing while being worth nothing to gamble on. Question 17 was always Key Question 1 or Key Question 2, and Question 18 was always Key Question 3 or Key Question 4, in all seven papers. And the pairing was rigid: every time Question 17 was the Asia-Pacific, Question 18 was Allied victory; every time Question 17 was Europe, Question 18 was civilians. Seven papers is one year. Treat this as a description of 2024, not as a rule, and note that this site's Paper 1 marking notes record the opposite tendency elsewhere in Section B, where Cambridge does not tie a Key Question to a slot.

The three questions in full, because there are only three:

June 2024, 0470/11, Question 17. Stem: "Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan had successes and failures."

• (a) What happened in the Battle of Midway? [4]
• (b) Why did Singapore fall to the Japanese forces? [6]
• (c) "Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 because of the economic sanctions of the United States." How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer. [10]

June 2024, 0470/12, Question 17. Stem: "Britain, Japan and the United States all had interests in the Asia-Pacific."

• (a) Describe relations between Japan and the United States in the period before the attack on Pearl Harbor. [4]
• (b) Why were the British defeated in Malaya? [6]
• (c) How far was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a success? Explain your answer. [10]

November 2024, 0470/13, Question 17. Stem: "War in the Asia-Pacific developed rapidly and Japan made early gains."

• (a) Describe events at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. [4]
• (b) Why did relations between the United States and Japan deteriorate before the outbreak of war? [6]
• (c) How far do you agree that the main reason for Japanese military success in the Asia-Pacific in 1942 was the weakness of British forces? Explain your answer. [10]

Paper 4, all seven 2024 papers

If your school enters you for Paper 4, the Alternative to Coursework, rather than the coursework component, your Depth Study is examined there too, in the format (a) 15 marks "Write an account of" and (b) 25 marks "Discuss the importance of" or "Discuss the impact of". Depth study E was Questions 9 and 10 in every one of the seven papers.

Three papers out of seven again, six question parts. Note that the Paper 4 mark schemes print indicative content rather than level exemplars, which means they list facts more openly than Paper 1 does. A large part of sections 4 to 7 below comes from them.

What the examiner reports say

Nothing. The March 2024 Principal Examiner report, the only 2024 report in the corpus read, records for both Paper 1 and Paper 4 that there were too few responses to Depth Study E for any meaningful comment to be made. It names Depth Study B, Germany, as the most popular choice, followed by Depth Study D and Depth Study C.

So there is no examiner commentary anywhere on this content. Section 9 below therefore carries only the mistakes that can be established from the mark schemes themselves and from the general examiner reports, and it says which is which.

4. Focus point: how did US-Japanese relationships deteriorate?

How did US-Japanese relationships deteriorate?

Set three times. As a 4-mark "describe" in June 2024 (0470/12), as a 6-mark "why" in November 2024 (0470/13), and as a 15-mark "write an account of" twice on Paper 4 (June 0470/41 and November 0470/42, the second phrased as US attempts to restrain Japanese aggression). It is the most heavily examined focus point in this Key Question, which is worth noticing given that it is the one with no specified content of its own.

Everything below is a point Cambridge itself printed in one of those mark schemes.

The long background

• Japan had been wary of US expansion into the Pacific since the 1920s.
• US annexation of Hawaii and the Philippines was considered too close to Japan's sphere of influence.
• Japan took a hostile approach to the United States after the rejection of the Racial Equality Proposal in the Versailles Settlement.
• Both the United States and Japan were interested in developing trade in China and East Asia, and the United States wanted an "Open Door" policy towards China.
• US protectionist tariffs had destroyed the international silk trade, which mattered to Japan.

The expansion that broke it

• Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, and tensions grew.
• The US government refused to recognise the Japanese government in Manchukuo.
• Japan invaded China in 1937. The Nanking Massacre turned Western public opinion against Japan.
• Japan attacked a US gunboat, the USS Panay, in Chinese waters in 1937.
• Japan ignored the naval treaties and rearmed on a huge scale.
• The United States began supporting the Chinese against the Japanese, and with Britain gave financial and military support to the Chinese Nationalists.
• Japan wanted to create a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which meant occupying British colonies in the region.
• In 1940 an expansionist government came to power in Japan.
• Japan demanded Britain close the Burma Road.

The sanctions, which are the part that is examined

• The United States announced it would stop selling Japan materials that could be used for war.
• In July 1940 President Roosevelt cut off shipments of scrap iron, steel and aviation fuel to Japan.
• Japan invaded French Indochina. One Cambridge account has the United States at this point banning aviation fuel and aircraft parts but not oil, with the oil ban following in 1941.
• In July 1941 Japan moved into southern Indochina, looking to launch an attack on British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. In response, Roosevelt cut off oil supplies.
• The United States took control of Japanese money in the United States and closed the Panama Canal to Japanese ships. A separate account puts it as the United States freezing all Japan's assets, which stopped Japan buying more oil.
• Talks between the United States and Japan failed.

The argument this focus point sets up

The 6-mark question asks why relations deteriorated, and the mark scheme's Level 3 and 4 exemplar chooses the resource chain, not the ideological one. Its shape:

1. Roosevelt cut off scrap iron, steel and aviation fuel in July 1940
2. Japan needed resources and invaded French Indochina
3. in July 1941 Japan moved into southern Indochina, aiming at British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies
4. in response Roosevelt cut off oil

That is a spiral, and saying so is what turns a list into an explanation. Each American measure was a response to a Japanese move, and each Japanese move was an attempt to escape the last American measure. A candidate who writes the two sides as separate lists is at Level 2 no matter how many items are in them.

The second reason, for the second explanation that takes you to 6, is the collision over China: the Open Door, the refusal to recognise Manchukuo, the aid to the Chinese Nationalists, and the Nanking Massacre shifting American opinion. Two reasons, two mechanisms, one from resources and one from China.

Why oil is the through-line

Paper 4 set "Discuss the importance of oil for Japan in the war in the Asia-Pacific" at 25 marks, and the indicative content divides it three ways, which is a ready-made structure:

• Economic importance. Japan lacked crude oil resources on mainland Japan; US oil exports were vital to the Japanese economy.
• Military importance. Japan was unable to wage war without oil; it targeted the Dutch East Indies, which was oil-rich, and trade centres like Singapore.
• Political importance. The fall of the Konoye government owing to lack of military support.

Oil is the single link between this focus point and the next two: it explains why relations broke, why Pearl Harbor was attacked, and where the Japanese army went afterwards.

5. Focus point: how successful was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor?

How successful was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor?

Set almost word for word. June 2024 (0470/12) asked "How far was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a success?" at 10 marks. November 2024 (0470/13) asked what happened at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 at 4 marks. June 2024 (0470/11) asked at 10 marks whether Japan attacked because of American economic sanctions. Paper 4 in November 2024 (0470/42) asked candidates to discuss the impact of the attack at 25 marks. Four questions in one year across two components: this is the most valuable focus point in the file.

What happened, as Cambridge prints it

From the November 2024 mark scheme, answering the 4-mark "describe events at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941":

• 177 aircraft from the Japanese Navy attacked the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor.
• They intended to destroy the US Pacific Fleet.
• The first part of the first attack began by bombing the hangars and parked aircraft on the island's airfields.
• Torpedoes were launched against the US warships in the harbour.
• Four battleships were hit, including the USS Oklahoma and the USS Arizona.
• The USS Arizona exploded, killing 1177 of its crew.
• A second wave of attacks began an hour later.
• Within two hours, 21 US warships had been sunk or damaged.
• The Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers were not at Pearl Harbor during the attack and so escaped damage.

From the November 2024 Paper 4 mark scheme, on the military impact: 2400 Americans killed and 1100 wounded; 18 ships including 5 battleships were sunk; 29 Japanese planes lost in the first wave. Section 8 handles the fact that these ship counts do not agree with each other, and tells you what to do about it.

Why Japan attacked, which is a separate question

June 2024 (0470/11) set the causes as a 10-mark "how far", with sanctions as the named cause. The mark scheme gives both sides fully, and its Level 5 answer refuses to separate them:

The two factors were closely linked, and it is difficult to separate them. Japan wanted to build an empire but for this it needed oil.

The two explanations Cambridge prints at Level 3 are worth learning as a matched pair:

Sanctions. Japan badly needed oil and bought most of it from abroad. When Japan invaded French Indochina in 1941 the United States froze all Japan's assets, stopping Japan buying more oil. Japan planned to take oil by force and to invade British Malaya, but feared an American response, so it attacked the fleet at Pearl Harbor to weaken that response.

Expansion. Japan wanted to build an empire and be recognised as a great power. It had already invaded Manchuria, and in 1937 a major war with China began, with Japan capturing Nanjing. This worried the United States, especially when Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. Japan concluded the United States stood in the way and decided to weaken it in the Pacific.

Cambridge also credits, at identification level: that the Japanese thought the United States would revert to isolationism; that Japan thought the United States would negotiate a peace; that the sanctions covered aircraft exports, oil and scrap metal; and that the aim was to enable invasion of Burma, British Malaya and the Philippines.

The two-sided argument, which is the whole 10 marks

This is the cleanest "how far" in the Depth Study, because Cambridge has written both sides itself.

It succeeded. The Japanese caught the Americans completely by surprise. Planes destroyed or damaged 20 US warships and over 300 airplanes. Many Americans were killed. Much of the Pacific Fleet was destroyed, and it exposed American incompetence in not planning for such an attack. It was a big propaganda victory. It gave Japan a head start, and until mid-1942 the Japanese won every major battle.

It failed. The US aircraft carriers were not at Pearl Harbor. Important parts of the base were not destroyed, such as oil depots and shipyards, and the attack gave the United States a chance to rebuild its fleet. Japan had wanted to pressure the Americans into lifting sanctions and got the opposite: the United States declared war. Japan now had to fight Britain and the United States at the same time. Rather than damaging American morale, it united the United States behind the war, determined for revenge.

The Level 5 judgement Cambridge prints turns on a distinction of time, and it is the single most useful sentence-shape on this page:

1. a great success on the day, with many US ships and planes destroyed
2. but a short-term success only
3. strategically a disaster, because it committed Japan to a long war against the United States
4. which Japan was never going to win against American military might

Say "successful tactically and disastrous strategically", attach a reason, and you have the tenth mark.

The wider impact, for the 25-mark version

Paper 4's indicative content sorts the consequences into four kinds, and the sort is worth copying even on Paper 1:

• Military. Crippled US naval power in the Asia-Pacific.
• Strategic. The US Navy temporarily could not retaliate or support the British; Japan could occupy South-East Asian islands with little resistance and build defences; the implications were short-lived because the carriers were untouched and battleships were quickly repaired or replaced; and it brought the United States into the war against Japan and Germany.
• Political. Roosevelt declared war on Japan the next day, as did Britain; the United States also declared war on the Axis powers in Europe; there was a reaction in Canada against Japanese immigrants, with expulsion from British Columbia; anti-Japanese feeling in the United States led quickly to internment in February 1942.
• Cultural. Anti-Japanese propaganda; intensified pro-war feeling; Pearl Harbor used for recruitment throughout the war; a morale boost for the Allies.

One consequence Cambridge prints in a Paper 4 scheme is that the attack forced Germany to declare war on the United States as well. That is the point at which the war in the Asia-Pacific and the war in Europe became one war, and it is the strongest bridge available between this file and the Key Question 1 file.

6. Focus point: why were the Japanese successful in the initial stages of the war?

Why were the Japanese successful in the initial stages of the war?

Set five times, more than any other. Two 6-mark "why" questions (June 2024 0470/11 on Singapore, June 2024 0470/12 on Malaya), one 10-mark "how far" (November 2024 0470/13, on whether British weakness was the main reason), and on Paper 4 a 15-mark account of the fall of Singapore and a 25-mark discussion of the importance of the Japanese navy (both November 2024 0470/41).

The specified content limits the case study to Malaya and Singapore, and every question so far has either been about them or has used them as its centre. Revise them in detail; revise the rest of Southeast Asia as supporting breadth.

The narrative Cambridge prints

• British bases in Singapore were key to political and economic control of the region.
• In December 1941 Japan landed in Malaya, and by January 1942 Japan controlled most of the territory.
• In February 1942 Japan prepared to launch an invasion of Singapore.
• Japan attacked British positions using infantry, naval and air support, and the Japanese navy was used to cut off reinforcements.
• Japan had over 500 aircraft and Britain had 158.
• The British army lacked supplies of food, water, petrol and ammunition to resist the rapid advance, and there was low morale among British troops.
• Singapore took just seven days to conquer.

Reasons for the defeat, sorted

Cambridge's two 6-mark mark schemes between them credit the following. They fall into three groups, and grouping them is the difference between a Level 2 list and a Level 4 explanation.

British assumptions were wrong. The British were taken by surprise. They expected an attack from the sea and that is where their main defences were. They did not expect the Japanese to attack from the jungle of the Malay Peninsula, and assumed fast progress through the jungle was not possible. Singapore's coastal guns were destroyed, and Singapore's guns were not effective against infantry targets. The British had ignored warnings that an attack might come at Songkhla and Kota Bharu.

British command and resources failed. Poor communication between military and civilian authorities. Miscalculations by General Percival, who did not send reinforcements quickly enough to where the main attack was, spread his men too thinly across the whole coastline, and expected an attack east of the Causeway and put his strongest forces there. He was wrong. Coordination between the ground troops and the Royal Air Force was poor. The ground troops were not trained or equipped properly, and the officers showed no interest in jungle warfare. There was a lack of air cover. The British depended on early warning of an attack and on US help, and neither happened. The Allies were running out of water and food.

Japanese strength was real. Japan sent their best generals and troops to Malaya. The sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse. The Japanese moved quickly by using bicycles and used collapsible boats to outflank the British. Japanese bombing did a lot of damage. The Japanese had more military strength, given in one mark scheme as over 200 tanks and 600 aircraft.

The argument: whose weakness?

November 2024 (0470/13) set the sharpest version of this: "the main reason for Japanese military success in the Asia-Pacific in 1942 was the weakness of British forces". The mark scheme's own judgement rejects the statement, and the reasoning is regional rather than British:

1. The weakness of British forces contributed
2. but it was not the main reason, because Japan had already taken countries that were not British
3. those countries were easily overwhelmed
4. which made the British colonies easier to occupy in 1942

The material Cambridge credits on the non-British side is the part most candidates will not have:

• France and the Netherlands were occupied by Nazi Germany, so it was easy for Japan to defeat Dutch territory such as Indonesia.
• The attack on Pearl Harbor weakened the US forces that were supposed to defend the Philippines.
• Thailand surrendered to Japan a day after the invasion, which allowed Japanese troops to attack Burma in the north and Malaya to the south.
• Indonesia and Thailand were invaded in 1941 and were not part of the British Empire.
• Japan had many more aircraft carriers than the Allies in the Asia-Pacific.

So the strongest available position is that British weakness was real but local, and that the collapse of the European colonial powers in Europe had already emptied the region of anyone who could resist. That is a judgement, and it answers the question asked.

The navy, for the 25-mark version

Paper 4 asked for the importance of the Japanese navy. The indicative content sorts it as:

• Strategic. The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 crippled the US Pacific Fleet, allowing Japan to invade islands and colonies in the region.
• Victories. Key victories against Allied navies, including driving the Royal Navy from Southeast Asia in 1942.
• Military. The Japanese navy sank Royal Navy capital ships; millions of tonnes of shipping damaged in the first six months of war; it eliminated strategic points that could be used for counter-offensives.
• Technological. Upgraded for the Second World War into a world-class navy, with the largest battleship in the world, Yamato; ten aircraft carriers compared to the USA's eight; and a world-class naval air force including the "Zero" fighter aircraft.

That last bullet is the bridge to the next focus point. A navy built on ten carriers is a navy that can lose the war by losing carriers.

7. Focus point: why was the Battle of Midway a turning point?

Why was the Battle of Midway a turning point?

This is the thinnest focus point in the Depth Study, and there is no honest way to disguise that. Across all fourteen 2024 papers, Midway has been set exactly once, as a 4-mark "What happened in the Battle of Midway?" in June 2024 (0470/11). The focus point asks why it was a turning point; the only question ever set asks what happened. Nobody has yet sat a paper that asks the question the syllabus poses.

Everything Cambridge prints about Midway

From the 4-mark mark scheme, in full. These eight bullets are the entire Cambridge record on this focus point:

• Surprise attack on the Allied base at Midway Island planned.
• The Americans learned that an attack on Midway Island was planned.
• The Japanese ships outgunned the American fleet.
• Three-pronged attack planned.
• The Japanese commander hesitated when he should have attacked.
• US dive bombers caused terrible damage to the Japanese ships.
• The Japanese fleet retreated.
• The battle turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.

Two further sentences appear in the Key Question 4 mark scheme for the atomic-bomb question in the same paper, and both are creditable there rather than here: that after defeat in the Battles of Midway and Guadalcanal, the Japanese knew they were losing, and, as an identification-level point, that the Battle of Midway decided the outcome of the war.

That is all of it. Cambridge prints no date for Midway, no ship losses on either side, no aircraft numbers, no commanders' names, and no account of the intelligence work behind "the Americans learned that an attack was planned". None of that is written here, because writing it would mean taking it from somewhere Cambridge did not.

The argument you can build from eight bullets

Thin as it is, the eight bullets do contain an argument, and it is a good one. Read them in order and a mechanism appears:

1. The Japanese planned a surprise attack and outgunned the American fleet
2. but the Americans learned the attack was coming, so the surprise was lost
3. the three-pronged plan split Japanese strength and the Japanese commander hesitated
4. US dive bombers caused terrible damage and the Japanese fleet retreated
5. so the tide of the war in the Pacific turned

Notice what that chain is really about: Midway is the one battle in this Key Question that Japan lost for the same reasons Britain lost Malaya. Surprise assumed and not achieved, an over-complicated plan, a commander who guessed wrong. Cambridge's own bullets set up that symmetry, and drawing it is an argument no textbook will have given you.

The "turning point" case, in the terms Cambridge's own wording supports, has three legs. Before Midway, until mid-1942 the Japanese won every major battle. Midway is where the tide of the war in the Pacific turned. And after Midway and Guadalcanal the Japanese knew they were losing.

The case against, which is what a "how far" question would need, has to be built from the Key Question 4 material and used carefully so as not to answer the wrong question: the mark scheme there argues that Japan's defeat followed from American industrial might, with the Japanese economy one-tenth the size of America's, and that Japan could never have been as strong. On that reading Midway marked the turn rather than causing it. If you use that line, use one sentence of it and come straight back, because the causes of Japan's final defeat belong in the Key Question 4 file.

8. Where Cambridge's own documents disagree

The 2024 mark schemes were written for seven different papers and they do not always print the same number for the same thing. Do not try to reconcile them, and do not average them. Pick one figure, use it inside an explanation, and know that examiners on this content are crediting the explanation rather than auditing the arithmetic.

How many US ships at Pearl Harbor. November 2024 Paper 1 (0470/13) prints "Within two hours, 21 US warships had been sunk or damaged". June 2024 Paper 1 (0470/12) prints "20 US warships" destroyed or damaged. November 2024 Paper 4 (0470/42) prints "18 ships including 5 battleships were sunk". The third is not necessarily inconsistent with the first two, because "sunk" is narrower than "sunk or damaged", but 20 and 21 are two counts of the same thing.

How many Japanese aircraft attacked. November 2024 Paper 1 (0470/13) prints 177 aircraft from the Japanese Navy. No other paper gives a total. The same mark scheme prints 1177 as the crew lost on the USS Arizona. Use the figures as printed and attribute them; there is no second Cambridge source to check either against.

How many Japanese aircraft in Malaya. June 2024 Paper 1 (0470/12) prints "over 200 tanks and 600 aircraft". November 2024 Paper 4 (0470/41) prints "Japan had over 500 aircraft and Britain had 158". Different papers, different campaign framing, different numbers.

How large the Japanese carrier advantage was. November 2024 Paper 4 (0470/41) prints ten aircraft carriers compared to the USA's eight. November 2024 Paper 1 (0470/13) credits, as a valid identification, "Japan had many more aircraft carriers than the Allies in the Asia-Pacific". Ten against eight is an advantage; whether it is "many more" is a matter of wording, and both are creditable.

When and what the United States embargoed. June 2024 Paper 4 (0470/41) has Japan's invasion of Indochina met with a ban on aviation fuel and aircraft parts, but not oil, with the oil ban coming in 1941. November 2024 Paper 1 (0470/13) has Roosevelt cutting off scrap iron, steel and aviation fuel in July 1940, and oil after the move into southern Indochina in July 1941. June 2024 Paper 1 (0470/11) describes the 1941 measure as freezing all Japan's assets in the United States, which stopped Japan buying oil, rather than as an embargo. All three are creditable. The safe formulation, which no Cambridge document contradicts, is that the United States restricted war materials first and oil last, and that the oil measure came in 1941.

Spelling. Cambridge prints Pearl Harbor in every question stem, and Pearl Harbour once inside a November 2024 Paper 1 mark-scheme exemplar. It prints the name of the region with two different dashes across the seven 2024 Paper 1 papers, sometimes as a hyphenated compound and sometimes not. It prints both Nanking and Nanjing, and both island hopping and island-hopping. None of this is marked. Use the question paper's spelling and move on.

9. What goes wrong on this content

There is no examiner commentary on Depth Study E, because the March 2024 report says there were too few responses to comment on. So this section is shorter and more careful than it would be on an older Depth Study. Two of the items below are established from the mark schemes; the rest are the general Paper 1 faults applied to this content, and they come from the reports covering the paper as a whole rather than from anything written about this Depth Study.

Established from the mark schemes on this content:

• Describing the attack when asked why it happened. The June 2024 (0470/11) Level 1 exemplar for the 10-mark causes question is a description of the attack itself: the Americans surprised, three hundred aircraft destroyed. That is one mark out of ten, and it is written in perfectly accurate sentences.
• Writing about British shock instead of British defeat. Both Singapore and Malaya mark schemes put the same kind of answer at Level 1: that the fall was a bitter blow, that Churchill was upset, that the British had never thought Singapore could fall. Accurate, relevant to the topic, and not an answer to "why".

The general faults, applied here:

• Answering with the wrong Key Question's material. The occupation of Malaya, the treatment of civilians and the Malayan resistance belong to Key Question 3; Guadalcanal, Okinawa, island-hopping and the atomic bomb belong to Key Question 4. All of them are about the Asia-Pacific and none of them is about how the war developed.
• Ignoring a date limit. November 2024 (0470/13) asked about Japanese military success in 1942, and about relations before the outbreak of war. Material from 1943 onward earns nothing on the first, and the attack itself earns nothing on the second.
• Listing sanctions instead of explaining the spiral. The commonest fault on any part (b), and this content invites it, because the sanctions are easy to list and the sequence takes a sentence to explain.
• A one-sided answer on Pearl Harbor. The "how far was it a success" question is capped at 6 out of 10 for a candidate who only writes the ships and aircraft destroyed. The carriers, the oil depots and the American declaration of war are the other half, and Cambridge prints them.
• Using material Cambridge credits but the syllabus does not name. The Racial Equality Proposal, the silk trade, the Konoye government, the Panama Canal and the Canadian expulsions all appear in mark schemes and are creditable. The specified content names none of them. Use them as supporting detail inside an explanation, which is exactly where the fifth mark on part (b) lives, and never as the backbone of an answer.

10. Quick revision

• Key Question: How did the Second World War in the Asia-Pacific develop? Four focus points: the deterioration of US-Japanese relations, the success of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the reasons for initial Japanese success, and Midway as a turning point.
• Full title: Depth study E: The Second World War in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, 1939 to c.1945. The dates are part of it.
• Specified content is printed once for the whole Depth Study and is not divided by Key Question. Yours is three bullets: the reasons for the attack on Pearl Harbor and its consequences; reasons for initial Japanese military successes in Southeast Asia by early 1942, case study Malaya and Singapore; and the Battle of Midway and its impact.
• Where it sits: Paper 1 Section B, always Question 17 and Question 18, the last slot. Paper 4, always Question 9 and Question 10.
• How much practice exists: fourteen papers contain this Depth Study, all from 2024. Six set this Key Question: three Paper 1 papers, always as the whole of Question 17, and three Paper 4 papers. Zero before 2024. No examiner commentary exists.
• Deterioration: wariness of US Pacific expansion since the 1920s; Hawaii and the Philippines; the Racial Equality Proposal rejected at Versailles; the Open Door; Manchuria 1931; Manchukuo unrecognised; China 1937, Nanking, the USS Panay 1937; naval treaties ignored; aid to the Chinese Nationalists; the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere; an expansionist government in 1940; the Burma Road demand; July 1940 scrap iron, steel and aviation fuel cut off; Indochina; July 1941 southern Indochina; 1941 oil cut off, assets frozen, the Panama Canal closed; talks failed.
• Oil: Japan had none at home; it could not wage war without it; it targeted the Dutch East Indies and Singapore; the Konoye government fell.
• Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941: 177 Japanese naval aircraft; the aim was to destroy the US Pacific Fleet; hangars and parked aircraft first, then torpedoes at the warships; four battleships hit including the Oklahoma and the Arizona, the Arizona exploding with 1177 of its crew; a second wave an hour later; 21 warships sunk or damaged within two hours (elsewhere 20, and 18 sunk including 5 battleships); 2400 killed and 1100 wounded; over 300 US aircraft; 29 Japanese planes lost in the first wave; the carriers were absent; oil depots and shipyards survived.
• The Pearl Harbor judgement: tactical success, strategic disaster. It committed Japan to a long war against a power ten times its economic size, brought the United States in against both Japan and Germany, and united American opinion. Until mid-1942 the Japanese won every major battle.
• Malaya and Singapore: landed December 1941, most of Malaya by January 1942, invasion of Singapore prepared February 1942, Singapore conquered in seven days. Over 500 Japanese aircraft against 158 British (elsewhere over 200 tanks and 600 aircraft). Prince of Wales and Repulse sunk. Bicycles, collapsible boats, jungle. Percival spread thin, reinforced the wrong side of the Causeway, ignored warnings at Songkhla and Kota Bharu. Guns pointed at the sea and useless against infantry. No air cover, no early warning, no US help, no water, no food.
• Beyond the British: France and the Netherlands were already occupied, so Indonesia fell easily; Pearl Harbor had weakened the defence of the Philippines; Thailand surrendered a day after invasion, opening Burma and Malaya. The strongest judgement is that British weakness was real but local.
• The Japanese navy: Yamato, the largest battleship in the world; ten carriers against the USA's eight; the "Zero"; the Royal Navy driven from Southeast Asia in 1942; millions of tonnes of shipping damaged in the first six months.
• Midway, the eight bullets: a surprise attack planned on the Allied base; the Americans learned of it; the Japanese ships outgunned the American fleet; a three-pronged attack; the Japanese commander hesitated; US dive bombers caused terrible damage; the Japanese fleet retreated; the battle turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. Cambridge prints no date, no losses and no names.
• The boundaries: Europe belongs to Key Question 1. Civilians in both theatres belong to Key Question 3, including the occupation of Malaya and Singapore and the Malayan resistance. Guadalcanal, Okinawa, island-hopping, the bombing of Japan and the atomic bomb belong to Key Question 4.

Where these facts come from

History notes are only as good as their sourcing, and on a Depth Study this new the sourcing matters more than usual, because there is very little to check against.

From the Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 syllabus for 2027 and 2028: the full Depth Study title including the date range; the Key Question and all four focus points; the whole undivided specified content list; the definitions of key questions, focus points and specified content; the list of five Depth Studies; and the fact that Depth Studies are also assessed by Component 3 and Paper 4.

From the Paper 1 mark schemes and question papers for the 2024 series, which are the only papers that have examined this Key Question: every fact and figure in sections 4 to 7 attributed to Paper 1. Specifically, from June 2024 paper 0470/11, the eight Midway bullets, the whole Singapore material including Percival, the Causeway, Songkhla and Kota Bharu appearing in the companion paper, the water and food shortage, and both sides of the Pearl Harbor causes question including the oil chain, the Tripartite Pact, Nanjing, the isolationism and negotiated-peace expectations, and the Burma, Malaya and Philippines target list. From June 2024 paper 0470/12, the whole US-Japanese relations list including the Open Door, the Burma Road, the Panama Canal, the 1940 expansionist government and the failed talks; the Malaya material including the Prince of Wales and Repulse, the bicycles, the collapsible boats, the 200 tanks and 600 aircraft, the Songkhla and Kota Bharu warnings and the poor air coordination; and both sides of the Pearl Harbor success question including the 20 warships, the over 300 airplanes, the absent carriers, the surviving oil depots and shipyards, and the Level 5 short-term-success judgement. From November 2024 paper 0470/13, the 7 December 1941 date in the question stem, the 177 aircraft, the two waves, the four battleships, the Oklahoma and Arizona, the 1177 crew, the 21 warships in two hours, the surviving carriers, the July 1940 and July 1941 embargo sequence, the USS Panay, Manchukuo, the naval treaties, the aid to China, and the whole 1942 argument including Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, the Dutch and French collapse and the carrier advantage.

From the Paper 4 mark schemes for the 2024 series: from June 2024 paper 0470/41, the 1920s wariness, Hawaii and the Philippines, the Racial Equality Proposal, the 1931 and 1937 invasions, the Nanking Massacre, the aviation-fuel-but-not-oil sequence, the 1940 military build-up, the 1941 oil ban, and the three-way division of the importance of oil including the Dutch East Indies, Singapore and the fall of the Konoye government. From November 2024 paper 0470/41, the fall of Singapore narrative including the December 1941 landing, the January and February 1942 dates, the over 500 against 158 aircraft, the supply and morale failures and the seven days, and the whole Japanese navy material including Yamato, the ten-against-eight carriers, the Zero, the Royal Navy driven out in 1942 and the shipping losses in the first six months. From November 2024 paper 0470/42, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the support for the Chinese Nationalists, the protectionist tariffs and the silk trade, the 1941 oil and steel embargoes, and the four-way impact analysis of Pearl Harbor including the 2400 killed and 1100 wounded, the 18 ships and 5 battleships, the 29 planes lost, the German declaration of war, the British Columbia expulsions and the February 1942 internment.

From the March 2024 Principal Examiner report: that there were too few responses to Depth Study E on both Paper 1 and Paper 4 for any meaningful comment, and the relative popularity of Depth Studies B, D, C and A.

Established by reading all the Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 question papers from 2018 to 2024, because Cambridge publishes it nowhere: that Depth study E appears in exactly fourteen papers, all from 2024; that it is Questions 17 and 18 on Paper 1 and Questions 9 and 10 on Paper 4 in every one; that three Paper 1 papers and three Paper 4 papers set this Key Question; and the 2024 pairing pattern in which Question 17 always came from Key Question 1 or 2 and Question 18 always from Key Question 3 or 4.

Deliberately left out, because no Cambridge document read for these notes states it, and this is the longest such list on this site. The date of the Battle of Midway, and any ship, aircraft or personnel losses on either side there; the names of any commander at Midway on either side; how the Americans learned of the Japanese plan; the date of the Tripartite Pact; the name or size of the Japanese carrier force at Pearl Harbor; the number of Japanese aircraft in the second wave; the total Japanese losses at Pearl Harbor beyond the first wave; the size of either army in Malaya; the number of Allied prisoners taken at Singapore; the date of the fall of Singapore; the date of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse; casualty figures of any kind for Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines, Burma, Indonesia or Thailand; the dates of the annexation of Hawaii and the Philippines; the volume or value of American oil exports to Japan; and every figure relating to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which belong to the Key Question 4 file with their own attribution. Casualty and force figures in this theatre are precisely where an invented number reads as plausible, and several of them are genuinely disputed outside the exam room. If you want any of these, take them from your own textbook, write down which textbook, and never assume a number in a revision guide came from a Cambridge mark scheme.

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