A month later, and again with heartfelt thanks to superior code-breaking, the US Navy
succeeded in ambushing the carriers which were leading the main body of the Imperial
Japanese fleet off the island of Midway, an extension of the Hawaiian chain. Thanks
to good luck, extreme bravery and prudent military practice, American naval aviators
sank four Japanese fleet carriers on 4–5 June. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Japan’s naval
commander-in-chief, had decided that the partial success at Pearl Harbor – no American
carriers were in port – needed to be augmented by the imposition of a truly crushing blow
against the US Navy at sea. Alas for him, the crushing blow was suffered by Japan. The
four carriers could and would be replaced eventually, but what could not be replaced was
the experienced elite of naval aviators, of whom Japan was to discover it possessed far
too few.
In the summer of 1942, with the Japanese failures at the Coral Sea and Midway, and
with the United States at least a year away from reaping the benefit of its rearmament
surge, the belligerents were in a condition of rough strategic balance. The Japanese had
lost the initiative, while the United States had yet to seize it and decide what to do with
it, and where. The strategic history of late 1942 to 1945 was driven principally by
American behaviour and Japanese responses. As a consequence, the focus now shifts
from Japanese to American strategy in order to explain the further course and character
of the war in Asia–Pacific.
American strategy
The United States did not really have a dominant strategy for the defeat of Japan. Rather,
it had several, each promoted by a separate armed service. Everyone agreed on the
geostrategic destination of American military power: Tokyo. But a clear choice of route
there was never made. One of the many benefits of a growing, and eventually great,
military superiority is that agonizing decisions between alternative courses of actions can
be evaded; one simply pursues each of the principal options. Americans did not, perhaps
could not, have a clear idea as to exactly how Japan would be brought to surrender.
The USAAF intended eventually to bomb Japan back into the Stone Age with its brand-
new B-29 Superfortresses (whose first combat mission was on 5 June 1944). The US
Navy expected to strangle Japan into impotence with a blockade enforced by its surface,
sub-surface and air assets, having first defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy in battle,
while the US Army anticipated launching, and planned to launch, a massive invasion of
Japan’s Home Islands. This view and approach reflected the respected dictum expressed
by Rear Admiral J. C. Wylie: ‘The ultimate determinant in war is the man on the scene
with the gun’ (Wylie, 1989: 72). However, given the fanatical quality of Japanese
resistance, ubiquitously, there were no illusions as to just how bloody a business an
invasion would prove to be.
The previous section advanced the story to the summer of 1942, when Japan lost the
strategic initiative; or, more precisely, when Japanese strategic options were significantly
reduced. This point was reached because of Germany’s continuing failure to knock the
Soviet Union out of the war and, more directly, because of the Imperial Navy’s defeat at
Midway in June. By way of an express overview, for the next two years, from June 1942
until June 1944, the two great navies of Japan and the United States were careful to avoid
each other, at least with respect to fleet-to-fleet combat. Both needed a major victory, but
172 War, peace and international relations