I'll just paste in small chunks at a time. Here's the first, and full credit goes to Henry I. Shaw, Jr. whose publication is provided in the link above.
FIRST OFFENSIVE: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal
by Henry I. Shaw, Jr.In the early summer of 1942, intelligence reports of the construction of a Japanese airfield near Lunga Point on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands triggered a demand for offensive action in the South Pacific. The leading offensive advocate in Washington was Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). In the Pacific, his view was shared by Admiral Chester A. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CinCPac), who had already proposed sending the 1st Marine Raider Battalion to Tulagi, an island 20 miles north of Guadalcanal across Sealark Channel, to destroy a Japanese seaplane base there. Although the Battle of the Coral Sea had forestalled a Japanese amphibious assault on Port Moresby, the Allied base of supply in eastern New Guinea, completion of the Guadalcanal airfield might signal the beginning of a renewed enemy advance to the south and an increased threat to the lifeline of American aid to New Zealand and Australia. On 23 July 1942. the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Washington agreed that the line of communications in the South Pacific had to be secured. The Japanese advance had to be stopped. Thus, Operation Watchtower, the seizure of Guadalcanal and Tulagi, came into being.
The islands of the Solomons lie nestled in the backwaters of the South Pacific. Spanish fortune-hunters discovered them in the mid-sixteenth century, but no European power foresaw any value in the islands until Germany sought to expand its budding colonial empire more than two centuries later. In 1884, Germany proclaimed a protectorate over northern New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the northern Solomons. Great Britain countered by establishing a protectorate over the southern Solomons and by annexing the remainder of New Guinea. In 1905, the British crown passed administrative control over all its territories in the region to Australia, and the Territory of Papua, with its capital at Port Moresby, came into being. Germany's holdings in the region fell under the administrative control of the League of Nations following World War I, with the seat of the colonial government located at Rabaul on New Britain. The Solomons lay 10 degrees below the Equator—hot, humid, and buffeted by torrential rains. The celebrated adventure novelist, Jack London, supposedly muttered: "If I were king, the worst punishment I could inflict on my enemies would be to banish them to the Solomons."
to be continued.
4 comments:
De'on,
I have a Life magazine I'll have to find for you. The Allies found German documents that explained in detail how the United States would be handled had they won the war. Life magazine printed that document in one of its issues.
According to the report, Japan and Germany were going to split our country in half. The Germans would take everything east of the Rocky Mountains and the Japanese would take the land east of the mountains. If the United States didn't surrender, they were going to bomb the United States' coast from Texas to New York. Washington, D.C. was to be wiped off the face of the map, and there was a list of all the Americans who were to be arrested immediately.
The Germans had already determined where they would build camps to exterminate the American Jews. That was to be done here, as they weren't going to transport them to Europe. The rest of the Americans were going to be used to serve the Germans.
If anyone thinks the Japanese and German regimes weren't evil, they need only to read their plans for us had they won the war. Today, we face an enemy every bit as evil, an enemy that probably has no interest in using us as slaves. They simply want to exterminate us.
When will Americans wake up to the danger? When will our country realize that the Muslim enemies are an evil bunch and are incapable of reasonable discussion? Is it any wonder that when God sent the Hebrews to war, that he ordered that nothing be left alive? Sometimes, it takes extreme measures to wipe out evil.
Great comment, Steve. Did you mean to seast or west as far as what Japan would take.
I hope you find your magazine. That would be great to blog that document.
I'm sorry about the error and thanks for your eagle eye! Yes, I meant that Japan would take everything west of the Rocky Mountains. Germany would have everything to the east.
Well, thanks for the info. Really.
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