New Guinea and the Marianas

This is another in the History of United States Naval Operations in World War II books and, as such, it's well done, interesting, and absolutely crammed with details.

The first thing I really like is that it has the names of Japanese planes and what the U.S. forces called them.

The book starts out talking about the Pacific Strategy for 1944. By this time in the war, the Japanese forces were giving way, and the march to Japan had begun. The Marianas were picked to attack as being on the inner perimeter of the Japanese defense zone. The Japanese much earlier had figured they would take a bunch of countries, then establish a defense perimeter around that area and just hold on. It didn't work, as the U.S. first attacked and took the outer perimeter area, and now was on the move to attack the inner perimeter area.

The U.S. plans for this stage including taking or neutralizing Hollandia, Truk, Caroline islands, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, and Mindanao.

The next section deals with submarine patrols, which is an area which doesn't always get as much attention or credit as it should. In 1943, for example, subs took out 12 Japanese warships and sunk 296 ships carrying supplies and/or troops. The destruction of the merchant shipping dealt a very serious blow to Japan.

The next section deals with New Guinea, Hollandia, and other areas, and then continues with various other specific battles.

Something the book points out that is very interesting is how severely the Japanese suffered from a fuel shortage, largely brought on by the effectiveness of U.S. submarines and planes. They no longer had enough fuel for extensive naval maneuvers, even though, over and over and over, they kept planning on a "decisive battle" to once and for all destroy the U.S. naval forces.

Another catch-phrase they kept using was "The fate of the Empire rests on this battle." It got to the point where almost every battle was being referred to that way. The Japanese would say it, lose the battle, the U.S. would attack somewhere near to Japan, and the phrase would be used again.

The book also goes into the Marianas Turkey Shoot, a battle where U.S. planes pretty much annihilated the Japanese planes. It was divided into various raids; the first Japanese raid losing 42 out of 69 attacking planes (61%). Raid II saw 97 of 128 destroyed (76%). Raid III saw the Japanese lose only 7 planes out of 47 (15%). Some of the planes had returned to their carriers with getting into any fights, though. Raid IV saw 73 of 82 Japanese planes show down, or an astonishing 89%. In the three Raids that saw regular battle, the Japanese lost an average of 75% of their attacking forces. That pretty much ended any actual Japanese air offensive capability. The next form of attack that hurt the U.S. would not happen until the kamikaze raids.

There's a very significant point the book makes:

"Heavy losses do not depress the Japanese as they do most other people-so glorious are the rewards for dead warriors."

The book then moves on to the taking of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian, the island from which the Enola Gay launched to drop the first atomic bomb on Japan.

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