When the Pacific War erupted with the invasion of Malaya and bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the G3M was by this time considered to be antiquated, but still three front-line units (the 22nd to 24th "koku sentai") were operating a total of 204 G3M2s in four "kōkūtai" (naval air corps) in the central Pacific and of these 54 aircraft from the "Takao Kōkūtai" were deployed from Formosa in the opening of the Battle of the Philippines. On 8 December 1941, (7 December across the International Date Line), G3Ms from the "Mihoro Kōkūtai" struck Singapore from bases in occupied Vietnam as one of many air raids during the Battle of Singapore, resulting in thousands of British and Asian civilians dead. Wake Island was similarly bombed by G3Ms from the "Chitose Kōkūtai" on the first day of the war, with both civilian and US Navy infrastructure being heavily damaged on the ground. Other G3Ms of "Chitose Kōkūtai", based in Kwajalein Atoll, attacked US Navy and civilian installations on Howland Island in the same period.