A clear overview but I'd like to see more of the Japanese experience. For example in New Guinea there were periods where IJN Zeroes operating out of Lae held such complete air superiority over Port Moresby they were filmed doing aerobatics over the Allied airfields, taunting pilots to come up and get shot down.
A cursory overview leaning on the Allied experience tends to lose some of the atmosphere, there were times when major strategic victories could've gone either way at any moment, and advantages shifted back and forth in the space of hours. On the ground it was often a very desperate struggle for the Allies, even at Guadal where Marines ostensibly held back some major attacks effortlessly, their experience was one of a rag tag bunch of virtually abandoned advance forces being rushed like an ant hill and pasting together wrecks with gaffa tape for air support only to have them blown to bits by off shore shelling. But then the Japanese experience is just as desperate, with command insubordination, poor intelligence, hesitation and misguided commitment complicating the ever present issues with diseases, supply and equipment maintenance, poorly coordinated forces and superior American manufacture of everything from a ration pack to a gun.
Meanwhile at Rabaul Japanese pilot reports are of exhausted and sickly or diseased aircrews being forced to fly upon pain of death with inadequate supply and non-existent medical services, where in peacetime they'd probably have been in a hospital bed. One pilot remarked he simply assumed every mission would be his last, but that these were the normal operational conditions at Rabaul even when the Japanese firmly held the area.
New Guinea and the Solomons were an introduction of just how brutal the Pacific war was going to be, every victory desperately fought and contested, refought and recontested until not one enemy company remained capable of putting up a defence. A mate's dad told me about coming across some Japanese engaging in cannibalism on one patrol, they'd been isolated and cut off for so long (he shot them in disgust).
Operation Cartwheel was the perfect strategy, cutting of supply and leaving enemy forces to wilt on the vine before mopping them up with every possible advantage, but it was probably the only realistic strategy to be used prior to the industrial dividends of 1944. But in fact I think to a small extent Operation Cartwheel had been tabled in the first place because of an existing force maintenance incapability in the field by the Japanese and the idea to capitalise on this with a committed siege was formed.
I don't know if I'd consider Coral Sea as much a strategic victory as a terrific morale booster, at this point the Japanese had been building an aura of invincibility which was summarily shattered. Then its superiority in the Pacific was downright smashed at Midway. Both these battles displayed deep seated problems within the Japanese command and administration and this knowledge was definitely an advantage to the Allies. But really they weren't any worse off after Coral Sea and should've totally dominated at Midway, that was just plain bad luck.
But I also think it's true that in real terms, what happened in the Pacific was always going to happen that way, the reasons for Allied victory are as much deep seated in Axis shortcomings than the sum total of combat I think, some elements of every victory must be considered circumstantial.
A cursory overview leaning on the Allied experience tends to lose some of the atmosphere, there were times when major strategic victories could've gone either way at any moment, and advantages shifted back and forth in the space of hours. On the ground it was often a very desperate struggle for the Allies, even at Guadal where Marines ostensibly held back some major attacks effortlessly, their experience was one of a rag tag bunch of virtually abandoned advance forces being rushed like an ant hill and pasting together wrecks with gaffa tape for air support only to have them blown to bits by off shore shelling. But then the Japanese experience is just as desperate, with command insubordination, poor intelligence, hesitation and misguided commitment complicating the ever present issues with diseases, supply and equipment maintenance, poorly coordinated forces and superior American manufacture of everything from a ration pack to a gun.
Meanwhile at Rabaul Japanese pilot reports are of exhausted and sickly or diseased aircrews being forced to fly upon pain of death with inadequate supply and non-existent medical services, where in peacetime they'd probably have been in a hospital bed. One pilot remarked he simply assumed every mission would be his last, but that these were the normal operational conditions at Rabaul even when the Japanese firmly held the area.
New Guinea and the Solomons were an introduction of just how brutal the Pacific war was going to be, every victory desperately fought and contested, refought and recontested until not one enemy company remained capable of putting up a defence. A mate's dad told me about coming across some Japanese engaging in cannibalism on one patrol, they'd been isolated and cut off for so long (he shot them in disgust).
Operation Cartwheel was the perfect strategy, cutting of supply and leaving enemy forces to wilt on the vine before mopping them up with every possible advantage, but it was probably the only realistic strategy to be used prior to the industrial dividends of 1944. But in fact I think to a small extent Operation Cartwheel had been tabled in the first place because of an existing force maintenance incapability in the field by the Japanese and the idea to capitalise on this with a committed siege was formed.
I don't know if I'd consider Coral Sea as much a strategic victory as a terrific morale booster, at this point the Japanese had been building an aura of invincibility which was summarily shattered. Then its superiority in the Pacific was downright smashed at Midway. Both these battles displayed deep seated problems within the Japanese command and administration and this knowledge was definitely an advantage to the Allies. But really they weren't any worse off after Coral Sea and should've totally dominated at Midway, that was just plain bad luck.
But I also think it's true that in real terms, what happened in the Pacific was always going to happen that way, the reasons for Allied victory are as much deep seated in Axis shortcomings than the sum total of combat I think, some elements of every victory must be considered circumstantial.
