The attainment of their main goals left the Japanese
high command with an opportunity they had to exploit. They knew that the only
way to win would be to build a strategic defense in depth, based on numerous
fortified belts. This became necessary because contrary to expectations,
American public opinion was far from being passive and weak. Indeed, it had
galvanized into an angry frenzy. American citizens of Japanese descent had been
rounded up and sent to remote camps, and a huge naval building program was
further augmented. As a result, there would be no negotiated peace, and the
various Japanese high commands were slowly faced with the prospect of a long
war, something that had been considered and even planned, but for which little
preparation had been carried out.
This was driven home by the unexpected
"Doolittle Bombing" of Tokyo by a small group of American bomber pilots who
flew their aircraft on a one-way mission. The Japanese tried to play down the
meaning of this action, but the mere fact that enemy aircraft had flown through
the airspace over the Emperor's Palace left many in indignant shock, and gave
more thoughtful people an early taste of Allied determination.
A first
step in Japanese high command’s defensive belt strategy was an advance
into the southeast Pacific in order cut the line of communication and supply
between the United States and Australia. At the same time, the central Pacific
island of Midway was to be seized in order to anchor the left flank of the
Gilbert Islands and to forestall direct American advances toward the Japanese
homeland. While offensive in appearance, these campaigns were actually
defensive in strategic tone. Their goals were to complete a defensive belt
which the allies would find impregnable.
The first of these
operations were launched against the crucial Australian position at Port
Moresby, New Guinea, and against the lightly held island of Tulagi in the
British Solomons. The Tulagi-Moresby operation quickly spiraled into a major
naval-air battle in the Coral Sea as American aircraft carriers which had
survived Pearl Harbor intervened, losing one of their own number in the
process. The end result was tactically a Japanese victory, but American
intervention had damaged both of the Japanese Navy's most modern
 fleet carriers and
triggered a cancellation of the Port Moresby invasion. This failure to secure
New Guinea was to have dire strategic consequences for the Japanese, whereas
the loss of one aircraft carrier turned out to have little impact on Allied
fortunes.
Immediately following the Battle of the Coral Sea, the
Japanese fleet again sailed toward Hawaiian waters as part of their Midway
operation. The resulting defeat, in which the Japanese lost four of their
largest aircraft carriers in exchange for sinking only one American carrier was
a loss from which there could be no recovery. The Battle of the Coral Sea had
blunted the Japanese run across the Pacific at great loss to the allies, but
the Battle of Midway cut off a part of the Japanese advance at great cost to
the Japanese themselves.
Following Midway, the Japanese resumed
their efforts to create powerful airfields in the Solomon Islands, the one area
which their mid-1942 campaign had made tangible gains. The realization that the
Japanese were preparing to develop air strikes against their eastern Pacific
supply line brought a robust Allied response. By early August, American marines
landed on the islands of Tulagi and Guadalcanal, quickly capturing the lightly
manned airfield on the larger island. Within 24 hours the Japanese Navy
responded by delivering a stinging defeat on the Allied surface fleet during an
all night battle. Over the ensuing days and nights, the American marines held
on through vicious land attacks and naval bombardments. Their hard won gain was
finally made good when the first friendly aircraft landed at Henderson Field on
August 20. The new arrivals immediately made their presence felt, and Japanese
naval operations became increasingly gauged to the likelihood of U.S. air
intervention. Indeed the dive bombers that operated out of newly named
Henderson Field learned how to attack targets at night, which further
complicated Japanese planning.
By this time, many Japanese naval
officers were ruefully considering the warning they had received at the
beginning of the war. They had been told by their commander in chief, Admiral
Isoroku Yamamoto, that in order to guarantee victory, each Japanese captain
would have to sink five Allied ships without losing his own. Experience from
pre-war maneuvers had taught veteran officers the improbability of such a
success ratio, and as the reality of this sank in, Japanese naval morale began
to suffer. By the end of 1942 the allies controlled parts of the eastern
Solomon Islands, and even though the entire area remained contested by the
Japanese, their officers on the scene were aware that they had allowed
themselves to be drawn into a losing battle of attrition over this remote
location. This view was not shared by high command in Tokyo, which dispatched
ever higher level commanders to the scene in order to deliver results. News
that the British were attempting to reenter Burma from India further reminded
Japanese planners that more than one enemy was nipping at their heels. The new
year would see a further deterioration of the situation as many Japanese
commands found themselves isolated by burgeoning Allied air and sea
superiority.
1943 Early 1943 was a period of
consolidation for both sides. The Japanese tried to prepare for the next Allied
moves, and the Allies debated the best way to employ their available resources,
which were being shared with the needs of the European theater. After a period
of volatile debate, it was decided to follow a two-pronged advance. One advance
was to leap frog through the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, cutting off
strong Japanese positions and using air-sea superiority to prevent rescue of
the isolated troops. The other advance would push through the central Pacific
in a series of amphibious invasions. Once these plans had been achieved, the
Allies would then decide whether to split the Japanese empire in half by
capturing either Formosa or the Philippines. While these plans were being
formulated, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto was killed when his transport plane was
shot down by American P-38 fighters over Bougainville. This was achieved
through the successful American monitoring of Japanese radio transmissions,
whose code the Americans repeatedly broke during the war. This vital flow of
information allowed the Allies to know virtually all Japanese plans and
movements before their execution.
By the middle of the year, Allied
forces were pushing relentlessly up the length of the Solomon Island chain. New
Georgia and Bougainville
both fell to the Allies, as well as Lae, New Guinea, which fell to Australian
forces on September 15. Throughout this period, forces from the United States,
Australia, Great Britain, China, India, New Zealand, and many other countries
continued to tie down, surround or hem in Japanese troops and ships across Asia
and the Pacific. At home, many senior Japanese diplomats and government
officials began to worry privately about the magnitude of Japan's overextended
assets. They had actually begun the war with a shortage of shipping and
fighting on multiple fronts combined with losses inflicted by American
submarines overburdened the already weak system.
In November, the
Allied Central Pacific drive began when U.S. Marines stormed ashore on the
Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Within 72 bloody hours they captured this
supposedly unbeatable stronghold, opening another breach in Japan's outer
defenses. But imperial high command in Tokyo was coming to its senses and
anticipated the loss of their outer ring. The Gilbert islands had already been
written off as a loss and more serious defensive preparations were underway
further to the west. Throughout 1943, American industrial output continued to
make itself felt. By the end of the year, aircraft production climbed to well
over 7,000 planes per month. Japanese production during this period doubled to
1,500 per month, not enough to compete even after accounting for American
aircraft sent to Europe. American ship production was equally prodigious, with
over 500 destroyers and destroyer escorts launched since 1941, compared to 30
for Japan. Japanese aircraft carrier production was comparatively high, with a
launch rate nearly 50% that of the American production level. But many of the
completed carriers lacked aircraft and trained aircrews, and several of these
priceless vessels were lost to American submarines that increasingly prowled
Japanese waters.
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