explanation is that the stakes were too high for a fleet-to-fleet encounter to be risked
for anything other than the most pressing of reasons, and only in the most favourable
circumstances. This was an example of a long-standing truth about war at sea.
The margin between victory and defeat can be narrow in a naval battle, where the
major combatant units will number only in the tens, or even less. Because battle is always
a risky undertaking, fleet preservation typically takes strategic precedence over the
chance for glory and advantage. It is true that the Imperial Japanese Navy had a doctrine
that emphasized battle, but it is undeniable that it husbanded the main body of its fleet
in home waters throughout the war. It sought battle on a large scale with its American
counterpart only three times: in June 1942 at Midway; in June 1944 at Saipan (or the
Philippine Sea); and in October 1944 at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines.
With the Japanese and US navies reluctant to expose themselves, especially their
precious carriers, to the hazards of major battle for the better part of two years after
Midway, the Americans took their first initiative to arrest and reverse the Japanese
advance. On 7 August 1942 the First Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal and Tulagi
in the southern Solomons, while an Allied army of Australians and Americans took on
the unenviable task of ejecting the Japanese from the north coast of New Guinea. The
Guadalcanal campaign was of great significance. It was conducted at the high-water
mark of Japan’s penetration of the South Seas, and it developed into an attritional struggle
of six months’ duration. The Americans eventually won, though the Japanese had the
better of much of the naval combat, especially at night. And attritional warfare played to
America’s growing strength and exposed Japan’s endemic material weakness.
Strategic empathy can be hard to achieve, but the effort is worthwhile because it offers
useful insight into the nature of strategy as well as the realities of strategic history.
Although the United States was firmly committed to defeating Germany first, in 1942
and 1943 there was not much of great strategic significance for American forces to do in
the European theatre. So, it followed that political resistance to an aggressive strategy in
the Pacific was easily overcome. The Japanese Navy had been wounded at Midway and
effectively went into hiding subsequently, except for its piecemeal commitment of scarce
surface vessels to the Solomons and New Guinea campaigns in the autumn and winter
of 1942–3.
Several roads to Tokyo
The United States faced the dilemma of too many viable choices, each favoured by a
different armed service and each proposing a different main character of warfare. There
were several roads to Tokyo.
First, the United States could continue the war that it was fighting already in the
South-West Pacific. The plan would be to advance up the Solomons and along the coast
of New Guinea into the Dutch East Indies. This largely Army venture, led by none other
than the all-American hero General Douglas MacArthur, he of the Medal of Honor
(granted as a morale-raiser at home in order to offset the bad news of defeat in the
Philippines), would proceed northwards to the Philippines. The Navy would support this
grand drive.
Second, the United States might try to defeat Japan in and from China. By assisting
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Chinese and some American forces would defeat the
World War II in Asia–Pacific, II 175