The nation warmed to its new role, shedding its neutrality in World War I by declaring war on Germany in 1917. By the end of the century, it was a colonial power, having annexed Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

And the final irony is that it was all moot because within days, two atomic bombs brought to an end a war that should never have been fought.The traditionally inward-looking but rapidly industrializing United States began to move onto the world stage in the 1890s. The Marines and the Army suffered more than 100,000 casualties. Tankers ran into larger guns on Okinawa, including larger anti-tank guns and covered artillery. It was the only major battle in which the Marines lost more men than the Japanese. Any open ground was a checkerboard of buried 500-pound bombs fixed to anti-tank mines. On Iwo Jima the main danger was from mines. The Marines were caught by surprise but quickly rallied and destroyed thirty of the inferior enemy tanks. A major engagement took place on Saipan when 37 Japanese tanks staged what one talking head calls a 'banzai charge' at night. And persistent fire from a light machine gun could penetrate a Japanese tank. cannon as opposed to the Sherman's 75 mm. The typical Japanese tank was designed for use against infantry in China, not for tank-to-tank encounters. The first such encounter was on Tarawa, where the Japanese used tanks mainly as artillery. But a surprising amount of engagement involving tanks took place in the course of the Marine's island hopping across the Pacific. We think of tans rushing around on flat ground, not creeping through jungles. Tank battles? That would be the level steppes of Russia, like Kursk, or even the Ardennes forest, like Bastogne.

It's an especially interesting episode because one doesn't ordinarily think of tank battles in the Pacific theater.

Greatest tank battles pacific