World History - Midway and Guadal canal

Midway and Guadalcanal

Planes from the American fleet found the Japanese ships first and destroyed four of their carriers in the Battle of Midway. Only one American carrier was lost. Midway is often called the turning point in the War in the Pacific because it destroyed the myth of Japanese invulnerability.

Another, and perhaps more significant turning point, came with the battle for Guadalcanal, August 1942–February 1943. To halt construction of a Japanese airbase on the island of Guadalcanal, which would have allowed air strikes against Allied supply convoys to Australia, the U.S. Marines and Army invaded the island. Fighting was intense on land, sea and air. In the end, the Japanese had to evacuate their remaining 12,000 troops.

Fighting was always brutal between the two sides, wherever they faced each other. Surrender was so shameful in Japan’s Bushido culture that, as one American officer expressed it after the war, "Every nation said its soldiers would fight to the last man. Only the Japanese did it." The names of islands like New Guinea, Tarawa, Peleliu, the Marianas, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and others would be written in the blood of Japanese, American, Australian and New Zealand servicemen.

Allied strategy was to capture a series of islands, constantly moving closer to Japan, and use those islands as supply bases from which to launch the next assault. This required a combined land-sea approach. Unlike the European Theater, there was no single supreme commander, as Eisenhower was in Europe.

Douglas MacArthur, a former Army Chief of Staff, was named supreme commander of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific after his evacuation from the Philippines in 1942. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz became supreme commander of Allied forces in the Pacific Ocean Area that same year. Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell commanded all U.S. forces in the China-Burma-India Theater; Britain’s Archibald Wavell was commander in chief in India, after being replaced as commander in North Africa. American general Curtis LeMay oversaw the strategic aerial bombing campaign against Japan.