How many Japanese soldiers were still in the Philippines in late 1944? They were essentially cut off from the home islands...
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If we go that way you can put in the whole Japanese army in China and/or the Dutch/British colonies.
So, encirclement would require the trapped army to be prevented from free movement not from natural obstacles, but by hostile armed forces?
Sure. But the Luftwaffe was also a hinderence to Dunkerque troops trying to leave by sea. Not to mention U-boats also interfered with the evacuation. Combined with the land encirclement, By all standards what happened in 1940 was an encirclement, while what happened to the Japanese in china and Philippines is not considered one. The US navy did prevent them from getting back to Japan, but thats just a blockade.
By the end of 1944 did the Japanese army in the Philippines have regular resupply from the home islands?
There were hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers in the Philippines... I would say that they were eventually "encircled" ... The questions are when, how many there were, and if a blockade of the sort which the US Navy put them under should be considered "encircled" for the purpose of this discussion.
I don't know the answers, but I think those are reasonable questions.
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The Kwangtung Army and the Japanese forces in China still had reasonably reliable sea transport to and from the Japanese Home Islands (by late in the war, it was essentially treated as a ready reserve for other fronts until the Soviets intervened; most of the Japanese units on Okinawa, for example, were transferred from the Kwangtung Army). It risked submarines, but it was far enough from Allied bases that it was reasonably doable unless you got unlucky.
The Japanese forces in the Philippines by 1945, not so much, though you could certainly argue to what extent it counts as an encirclement versus just a bunch of troops trapped in one place (or, since they were on a bunch of islands, some of which they probably could travel between, trapped in several places).
The Japanese forces in the Philippines by 1945, not so much, though you could certainly argue to what extent it counts as an encirclement versus just a bunch of troops trapped in one place (or, since they were on a bunch of islands, some of which they probably could travel between, trapped in several places).
I think if you've pressed the enemy up against a natural obstacle (mountains it is impossible to supply oneself through, a sea under naval blockade, a river too fast and deep to cross) you've pretty much got yourself an encirclement going on. I think a few ancient armies came unstuck from being jammed up against bad terrain on one side and a superior enemy army on the other.
It's all semantics and probably doesn't really matter, but I'd say that while blockades and encirclements are similar in denying retreat or resupply, they are kinda different in how an encirclement tends to assume you are actually surrounded by active enemy forces on all or at least multiple sides, while a blockade just means that your force is blocked off from going somewhere - there might or might not be actually any enemies all around you.
So I'd be kinda reluctant to count a pure naval blockade as a encirclement. Of course you can also "encircle" a fortress, castle and so on, and so if you want to actually take it, you have a similar issue as the difference between blockading an island and actually taking it, but I feel when technically the force on land can even be in a position to deny you the possibility of establishing a beachhead to attack from in the first place, or you might just not have any landing capabilities, just a nice fleet that can't do anything much to anyone on the islands, you really can't talk about them being "encircled".
So I'd be kinda reluctant to count a pure naval blockade as a encirclement. Of course you can also "encircle" a fortress, castle and so on, and so if you want to actually take it, you have a similar issue as the difference between blockading an island and actually taking it, but I feel when technically the force on land can even be in a position to deny you the possibility of establishing a beachhead to attack from in the first place, or you might just not have any landing capabilities, just a nice fleet that can't do anything much to anyone on the islands, you really can't talk about them being "encircled".