sentence-transformers/squad huggingface dataset:
Passage: It is generally considered that the Pacific War began on 7/8 December 1941, on which date Japan invaded Thailand and attacked the British possessions of Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong as well as the United States military bases in Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam and the Philippines. Some historians contend that the conflict in Asia can be dated back to 7 July 1937 with the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China, or possibly 19 September 1931, beginning with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. However, it is more widely accepted that the Pacific War itself started in early December 1941, with the Sino-Japanese War then becoming part of it as a theater of the greater World War II.[nb 9]

Question: When do most people believe the Pacific War began?

Question: On what date did Japan attack Pearl Harbor?

Question: When did the Second Sino-Japanese War begin?

Question: Which countries did the Second Sino-Japanese War encompass?

Question: Has Japan ever attacked Thailand?

Question: What is the generally accepted date the Pacific War started?

Question: When did Japan invade Manchuria?

Question: What nation initiated hostilities?

Question: When did Japan invade China?

Question: What was the Pacific War theater part of after December 1941?
Passage: The Pacific War saw the Allied powers pitted against the Empire of Japan, the latter briefly aided by Thailand and to a much lesser extent by its Axis allies, Germany and Italy. The war culminated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and other large aerial bomb attacks by the United States Army Air Forces, accompanied by the Soviet invasion of Manchuria on 8 August 1945, resulting in the Japanese announcement of intent to surrender on 15 August 1945. The formal and official surrender of Japan took place aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. Following its defeat, Japan's Shinto Emperor stepped down as the divine leader through the Shinto Directive, because the Allied Powers believed this was the major political cause of Japan's military aggression and deconstruction process soon took place to install a new liberal-democratic constitution to the Japanese public as the current Constitution of Japan.

Question: What events ended the war with Japan?

Question: On what date did Japan surrender?

Question: What changed in the ruling of Japan after the war?

Question: Where did Japan's surrender occur?

Question: What was the process called whereby the leader of Japan stepped down?

Question: What nation were the allies against?

Question: What nations comprised the Axis?

Question: What cities were destroyed by atom bombs?

Question: When did the Soviet Union invade Manchuria?

Question: When did Japan surrender?
Passage: Japan used the name Greater East Asia War (大東亜戦争, Dai Tō-A Sensō?), as chosen by a cabinet decision on 10 December 1941, to refer to both the war with the Western Allies and the ongoing war in China. This name was released to the public on 12 December, with an explanation that it involved Asian nations achieving their independence from the Western powers through armed forces of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japanese officials integrated what they called the Japan–China Incident (日支事変, Nisshi Jihen?) into the Greater East Asia War.

Question: By what name was the war with Japan referred?

Question: What did Japanese officials call the war?

Question: What was the reason Japan gave for the war?

Question: What date was the new name of the war released?

Question: What name did Japan call the war?

Question: When did Japan adobt the name for the war?

Question: What was Japan's publicised war goal?

Question: What did Japan call the occupied group of Asian nations?

Question: How was the name of the war chosen by Japan?
Passage: The Axis states which assisted Japan included the authoritarian government of Thailand in World War II, which quickly formed a temporary alliance with the Japanese in 1941, as the Japanese forces were already invading the peninsula of southern Thailand. The Phayap Army sent troops to invade and occupy northeastern Burma, which was former Thai territory that had been annexed by Britain much earlier. Also involved were the Japanese puppet states of Manchukuo and Mengjiang (consisting of most of Manchuria and parts of Inner Mongolia respectively), and the collaborationist Wang Jingwei regime (which controlled the coastal regions of China).

Question: What role did Thailand play in the war?

Question: Which group controlled Chinese costal regions?

Question: Which army invaded Burma?

Question: Burma was formerly annexed by what country?

Question: What states assisting Japan was Thailand a part of?

Question: What year did Thailand form an alliance with Japan?

Question: What army invaded northeastern Burma?

Question: What were the Japanese puppet states?

Question: Who controlled the coast of China?
Passage: The official policy of the U.S. Government is that Thailand was not an ally of the Axis, and that the United States was not at war with Thailand. The policy of the U.S. Government ever since 1945 has been to treat Thailand not as a former enemy, but rather as a country which had been forced into certain actions by Japanese blackmail, before being occupied by Japanese troops. Thailand has been treated by the United States in the same way as such other Axis-occupied countries as Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Poland, and the Netherlands.

Question: Did the U.S. believe that Thailand was an Axis ally?

Question: What does the U.S. believe caused Thailand to help Japan?

Question: Is Thailand treated differently than other Axis countries?

Question: According to the USA, what country did Japan blackmail?

Question: What nations were occupied by the Axis?

Question: After 1945, how did the USA treat Thailand?

Question: Who occupied Thailand according to the USA?
Passage: Japan conscripted many soldiers from its colonies of Korea and Formosa (Taiwan). To a small extent, some Vichy French, Indian National Army, and Burmese National Army forces were active in the area of the Pacific War. Collaborationist units from Hong Kong (reformed ex-colonial police), Philippines, Dutch East Indies (the PETA) and Dutch Guinea, British Malaya and British Borneo, Inner Mongolia and former French Indochina (after the overthrow of Vichy French regime) as well as Timorese militia also assisted Japanese war efforts.

Question: Where did many of Japan's soldiers come from?

Question: What type of soldiers came from Hong Kong?

Question: What other Asian country, a group of islands, helped the Japanese?

Question: What French forces assisted Japan?

Question: What colonies did Japan conscript soldiers from?

Question: Who were the collaborators assisting Japan in Hong King?
Passage: The major Allied participants were the United States, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom (including the armed forces of British India, the Fiji Islands, Samoa, etc.), Australia, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the Netherlands (as the possessor of the Dutch East Indies and the western part of New Guinea), New Zealand, and Canada, all of whom were members of the Pacific War Council. Mexico, Free France and many other countries also took part, especially forces from other British colonies.

Question: Did Mexico play a part in the war?

Question: What other major continent participated as an ally of the U.S.?

Question: On which side of the war were the Chinese?

Question: What colonies did the Netherlands possess?

Question: What large Asian country was allied with the United States?

Question: What was the name of the Philippines nation?

Question: What nation possessed the Dutch East Indies?

Question: What nation possessed west New Guinea?
Passage: By 1937, Japan controlled Manchuria and was ready to move deeper into China. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937 provoked full-scale war between China and Japan. The Nationalist and Communist Chinese suspended their civil war to form a nominal alliance against Japan, and the Soviet Union quickly lent support by providing large amount of materiel to Chinese troops. In August 1937, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to fight about 300,000 Japanese troops in Shanghai, but, after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell. The Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanking in December 1937 and committed which was known as Nanking Massacre. In March 1938, Nationalist forces won their first victory at Taierzhuang. but then the city of Xuzhou was taken by Japanese in May. In June 1938, Japan deployed about 350,000 troops to invade Wuhan and captured it in October. The Japanese achieved major military victories, but world opinion—in particular in the United States—condemned Japan, especially after the Panay Incident.

Question: What incident occured on July 7, 1937?

Question: Who supplied assistance to the Chinese military?

Question: When did the Nanking Massacre occur?

Question: Where was the first Nationalist victory?

Question: How did people around the world react to Japan's Panay Incident?

Question: When was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident?

Question: What incident started the war between China and Japan?

Question: What was the capital of China?

Question: When was Nanking captured?

Question: What nation provided material support to China?
Passage: In September 1940, Japan decided to cut China's only land line to the outside world by seizing Indochina, which was controlled at the time by Vichy France. Japanese forces broke their agreement with the Vichy administration and fighting broke out, ending in a Japanese victory. On 27 September Japan signed a military alliance with Germany and Italy, becoming one of the three Axis Powers. In practice, there was little coordination between Japan and Germany until 1944, by which time the U.S. was deciphering their secret diplomatic correspondence.

Question: Who controled Indochina in 1940?

Question: Who were the Axis Powers along with Japan in 1940?

Question: When did Japan invade Indochina?

Question: Did Japan and Germany work closely together prior to 1944?

Question: When did Japan take over Indochina?

Question: Who controlled Indochina before the Japanese takeover?

Question: When did Japan become an Axis power?

Question: How much coordination was there between Japan and Germany?

Question: How many nations comprised the Axis powers?
Passage: The war entered a new phase with the unprecedented defeat of the Japanese at Battle of Suixian-Zaoyang and 1st Battle of Changsha. After these victories, Chinese nationalist forces launched a large-scale counter-offensive in early 1940; however, due to its low military-industrial capacity, it was repulsed by Japanese army in late March 1940. In August of 1940, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central China; in retaliation, Japan instituted the "Three Alls Policy" ("Kill all, Burn all, Loot all") in occupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists. By 1941 the conflict had become a stalemate. Although Japan had occupied much of northern, central, and coastal China, the Nationalist Government had retreated to the interior with a provisional capital set up at Chungking while the Chinese communists remained in control of base areas in Shaanxi. In addition, Japanese control of northern and central China was somewhat tenuous, in that Japan was usually able to control railroads and the major cities ("points and lines"), but did not have a major military or administrative presence in the vast Chinese countryside. The Japanese found its aggression against the retreating and regrouping Chinese army was stalled by the mountainous terrain in southwestern China while the Communists organised widespread guerrilla and saboteur activities in northern and eastern China behind the Japanese front line.

Question: Why did the Chinese ultimately fail in its counter offensives?

Question: What policy did Japan adopt to retaliate against China?

Question: What slowed the Japanese in their attacks on China?

Question: In what city did Japan set up a provisional capital?

Question: What was Japan's "Three Alls Policy"?

Question: What year did China and Japan reach a stalemate?

Question: Where was the Chinese provisional capital?

Question: What natural obsticles stalled the Japanese offensive against the Chinese?

Question: What group organised guerrilla warfare against the Japanese in China?
Passage: Japan sponsored several puppet governments, one of which was headed by Wang Jingwei. However, its policies of brutality toward the Chinese population, of not yielding any real power to these regimes, and of supporting several rival governments failed to make any of them a viable alternative to the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek. Conflicts between Chinese communist and nationalist forces vying for territory control behind enemy lines culminated in a major armed clash in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation.

Question: Who was the leader of the Nationalist government?

Question: When did cooperation between communist and nationalist forces end?

Question: Did Japan support rival governments?

Question: When did the co-operation between Chinese nationalist forces and communists end?

Question: What was Wang Jingwei's government considered?

Question: What government did Chiang Kai-shek lead?
Passage: From as early as 1935 Japanese military strategists had concluded the Dutch East Indies were, because of their oil reserves, of considerable importance to Japan. By 1940 they had expanded this to include Indo-China, Malaya, and the Philippines within their concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japanese troop build ups in Hainan, Taiwan, and Haiphong were noted, Japanese Army officers were openly talking about an inevitable war, and Admiral Sankichi Takahashi was reported as saying a showdown with the United States was necessary.

Question: Which Japanese Admiral felt it was necessary to go to war with the U.S.?

Question: Why was the Dutch East Indies important to Japan?

Question: In what year did the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere expand?

Question: Who said a showdown between Japan and the United States would be necessary?

Question: What was the importance of the Dutch East Indies to Japan?

Question: By what year did Japanese strategists expand their concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere?
Passage: In an effort to discourage Japanese militarism, Western powers including Australia, the United States, Britain, and the Dutch government in exile, which controlled the petroleum-rich Dutch East Indies, stopped selling oil, iron ore, and steel to Japan, denying it the raw materials needed to continue its activities in China and French Indochina. In Japan, the government and nationalists viewed these embargos as acts of aggression; imported oil made up about 80% of domestic consumption, without which Japan's economy, let alone its military, would grind to a halt. The Japanese media, influenced by military propagandists,[nb 10] began to refer to the embargoes as the "ABCD ("American-British-Chinese-Dutch") encirclement" or "ABCD line".

Question: What were these embargoes called by the Japanese media?

Question: What did The West do to disuade Japan in China and French Indochina?

Question: Why was denying supplies important to the western countries?

Question: Why did Western powers stop selling resources to Japan?

Question: How did Japan view Western embargos?

Question: What percent of oil made up Japan's domestic consumption?

Question: What did the Japanese media refer to the embargoes as?
Passage: The Japanese leadership was aware that a total military victory in a traditional sense against the USA was impossible; the alternative would be negotiating for peace after their initial victories, which would recognize Japanese hegemony in Asia. In fact, the Imperial GHQ noted, should acceptable negotiations be reached with the Americans, the attacks were to be canceled—even if the order to attack had already been given. The Japanese leadership looked to base the conduct of the war against America on the historical experiences of the successful wars against China (1894–95) and Russia (1904–05), in both of which a strong continental power was defeated by reaching limited military objectives, not by total conquest.

Question: What would Japan accomplish by peace after their early victories?

Question: Did The Japanese believe they could defeate the U.S.?

Question: What was Japan's strategic goal in attacking America?

Question: What did the Japanese military leadership think the chances were of complete military victory ove the United States?

Question: What did Japan want recognised in planned peace negotiations after their initial victories?

Question: If acceptable negotiations btween Japan and the United States were reached, what would be done regarding the attacks?

Question: What was the conduct of the war against the United States based on?
Passage: In the early hours of 7 December (Hawaiian time), Japan launched a major surprise carrier-based air strike on Pearl Harbor without explicit warning, which crippled the U.S. Pacific Fleet, leaving eight American battleships out of action, 188 American aircraft destroyed, and 2,403 American citizens dead. At the time of the attack, the U.S. was not officially at war anywhere in the world, which means that the people killed or property destroyed at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese attack had a non-combatant status.[nb 11] The Japanese had gambled that the United States, when faced with such a sudden and massive blow, would agree to a negotiated settlement and allow Japan free rein in Asia. This gamble did not pay off. American losses were less serious than initially thought: The American aircraft carriers, which would prove to be more important than battleships, were at sea, and vital naval infrastructure (fuel oil tanks, shipyard facilities, and a power station), submarine base, and signals intelligence units were unscathed. Japan's fallback strategy, relying on a war of attrition to make the U.S. come to terms, was beyond the IJN's capabilities.

Question: How many U.S. battleships were incapacitated in the Pearl Harbor attacks?

Question: Was America at war when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor?

Question: How many Americans died in the Pearl Harbor attacks?

Question: Why did Japan attack America?

Question: What were the most vital American ships at the time of the attack?

Question: When did Japan launch the aattack on Pearl Harbor?

Question: How many American battleships were put out of action in the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan?

Question: How many US citizens were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan?

Question: How many aircraft did the United States lose in the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan?

Question: Where were the American aircraft carriers during the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan?
Passage: Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the 800,000-member America First Committee vehemently opposed any American intervention in the European conflict, even as America sold military aid to Britain and the Soviet Union through the Lend-Lease program. Opposition to war in the U.S. vanished after the attack. On 8 December, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands declared war on Japan, followed by China and Australia the next day. Four days after Pearl Harbor, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States, drawing the country into a two-theater war. This is widely agreed to be a grand strategic blunder, as it abrogated the benefit Germany gained by Japan's distraction of the U.S. (predicted months before in a memo by Commander Arthur McCollum)[nb 12] and the reduction in aid to Britain, which both Congress and Hitler had managed to avoid during over a year of mutual provocation, which would otherwise have resulted.

Question: What program allowed America to sell military supplies to Britain and the Soviet Union?

Question: On what day did the U.S. and its allies declar war on Japan?

Question: How long after the Pearl Harbor attacks did Germany and Italy declare war?

Question: Was Germany's declaration of war with the U.S. considered to be sound strategy?

Question: how many members did the America First Committee have?

Question: What group was opposed to American involvement in the war in Europe?

Question: When did the United States declare war on Japan?

Question: How many days after the attack on Pearl Harbor did Germany wait to declare war on the United States?

Question: Who predicted Germany's declaration of war against the United States months before?
Passage: Following the Declaration by United Nations (the first official use of the term United Nations) on 1 January 1942, the Allied governments appointed the British General Sir Archibald Wavell to the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM), a supreme command for Allied forces in Southeast Asia. This gave Wavell nominal control of a huge force, albeit thinly spread over an area from Burma to the Philippines to northern Australia. Other areas, including India, Hawaii, and the rest of Australia remained under separate local commands. On 15 January Wavell moved to Bandung in Java to assume control of ABDACOM.

Question: What date was the first official use of the term United Nations?

Question: Who was appointed to command the Allied forces in Southeast Asia in 1942?

Question: When did General Wavell assume control of the Southheast Asia Allied forces?

Question: How spread out were the Allied forces in Southeastern Asia?

Question: Where did General Wavell command the Allied forces from?
Passage: In January, Japan invaded Burma, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and captured Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Rabaul. After being driven out of Malaya, Allied forces in Singapore attempted to resist the Japanese during the Battle of Singapore but surrendered to the Japanese on 15 February 1942; about 130,000 Indian, British, Australian and Dutch personnel became prisoners of war. The pace of conquest was rapid: Bali and Timor also fell in February. The rapid collapse of Allied resistance had left the "ABDA area" split in two. Wavell resigned from ABDACOM on 25 February, handing control of the ABDA Area to local commanders and returning to the post of Commander-in-Chief, India.

Question: What islands did Japan invade?

Question: When did Allied forces surrender Singapore to the Japanese?

Question: How many Allied prisoners did Japan take after the Battle of Singapore?

Question: When did General Wavell resign as commander of the Allied forces of Southeastern Asia?

Question: After Wavell resigned from ABDACOM, What post did he return to?