 On 2 September 1914, Japanese forces landed on China's Shandong province and surrounded the German settlement at Tsingtao (Qingdao).During October, acting virtually independently of the civil government, the Imperial Japanese Navy seized several of Germany's island colonies in the Pacific - the Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall Islands - with virtually no resistance.The Japanese Navy conducted the world's first naval-launched air raids against German-held land targets in Shandong province and ships in Qiaozhou Bay from the seaplane-carrier "Wakamiya".