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Remember, not only did Washington send MacArthur there, they also dispatched the 1st Marine Div there, which at that time was basically the only ground forces we could muster in the entire theater.

And no worse match between force and mission than to ask Marines to hold ground.

So, you know that's the last act of a desperate Pentagon.

The speed with which Japan seized control of the entire Western and Central Pacific is stunning, even in hindsight - at set up they were on their home islands, Manchuria, and Korea - they also had an army in Eastern China - but within a few weeks, it seemed like there was a Japanese garrison and airfield on every other island in the Pacific at least North of Australia and West of Midway.

And by Summer 1942 - after battles in the Coral Sea and at Midway - it was all over, except the counting for the Empire of Japan.

I want to credit them for following an aggressive and correct strategy - cut the lines of communication between the U.S./U.K. and Australia - and they could have contained the Aussies while focusing on China to the West and the U.S. to the East. But, just as the Confederacy simply didn't have the men and materiel reserves to absorb the losses associated with agggressive, offensive operations, the Japanese could not replace what they were losing - particularly the extraordinarily high losses in capital ships and trained pilots for much of 1942.

Generalship and admiralship counts for only a small part of that war. To put it in perspective - in December 1941 - the U.S. Pacific Fleet consisted of 9 battleships, 3 aircraft carriers, 12 heavy cruisers, 8 light cruisers, 50 destroyers, 33 submarines and 100 patrol bombers (plus the air wings of the 3 aircaft carriers).

By May 1945 - there were 29 carrier DIVISIONS - counting the training squadron and the escorts - just the CVs and CVLs (not counting Saratoga, as she was the flagship of the training squadron) numbered 26 - the majority of which were state of the art, Essex class carriers (the world's first "supercarriers").

The Japanese navy was doing ... not as well ... in May 1945, from a combat power standpoint.

This post was edited on 6/15/15 at 2:00 pm