United States Army Forces in the Far East
The next six months were dominated by Japanese victories against the Allied forces, already war-weary and stretched thin after two years of war in Europe and North Africa. Japan managed to capture British Burma, New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, the Solomon Islands, Bali and Timor. In March 1942, days before the surrender of the Philippines, general Douglas MacArthur, who came out of retirement to become commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East at the onset of the war, was forced to flee and narrowly escape to Australia. On 19 February 1942, Japan also launched a devastating aerial attack on the Australian city of Darwin, in what was the first attack by a foreign power on Australian soil.