kuriles

At the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the Empire of Japan was allowed to annex the entire island of Karafuto (formerly known as Sakhalin) from the Russian Empire. The 600-mile island north of Hokkaido was treated as a prefecture rather than a colony, as more and more Japanese moved onto it...

I recently read The Thousand Mile War (highly recommended) and towards the end it mentions Allied plans to invade the Kuriles, with an earliest date of autumn 1943, but more likely the following year. The Americans had put a lot of effort into the construction of military bases and airfields in...