LEGACY OF THE PACIFIC WAR: 75 YEARS LATER August 2020 The Pacific War’s Lessons for the Continued Strategic Importance of Oceania By Lucas Myers lthough seemingly remote and The United States harbored designs on Yap Island underpopulated, the 38.7 square mile due to its strategic location and subsequently Yap Island in the Central Pacific’s Caroline protested against Japan’s award. As shown in a chain—today a part of the U.S.-associated Federated 1921 legal argument, the crux of the U.S.-Japan StatesA of Micronesia—triggered a pivotal diplomatic dispute lay in Yap’s undersea telegraph station dispute between the United States and Japan in the connecting East Asia to the United States. It also lead up to World War II. The controversy arose soon became apparent that Japan’s new island mandates after Japan received Germany’s Oceanic colonies, provided ample anchorage for military vessels including the Caroline Islands, in the 1919 Treaty of and submarine bases that “would be a perpetual Versailles as compensation for participation in the menace to Guam and would also jeopardizeAsia Great War. This sudden Japanese expansion into any fleet operation undertaken for the reliefP ofr ogram the Pacific Ocean soon proved unacceptable to the the Philippines.” In response, the United States American policymakers. proffered that Yap Island and its undersea cables Asia Program be internationalized and neutral. Several years of communications. Although technological and difficult negotiations resulted in a provision within geopolitical changes seemingly alter this calculus the 1921-1922 Washington Naval Conference in the modern era of long-range ballistic missiles, wherein the United States and Japan decided the Pacific War experience reminds us of several to share access to the island’s cable and radio enduring lessons: the Pacific Islands’ geography installations. Despite its peaceful resolution, this remains of vital strategic importance to the U.S.- dispute triggered a confrontational turn in U.S.- Australia competition with China, the preferences Japanese relations, demonstrated the threat and agency of Oceania’s countries will impact the posed by Japan in the Pacific, and previewed balance of power, and securing access and basing the vital strategic importance that access to in the Pacific islands for a future conflict has once the previously geopolitically unimportant Pacific again emerged as a crucial geopolitical objective. Islands would later play in World War II. The Lessons of the South Pacific Today, Oceania’s geography once again enters Campaigns the realm of great power competition. With the U.S.-China rivalry escalating across numerous During the early days of Japanese expansion from issue areas, the Pacific Islands seldom receive the 1941 to 1942, Oceania witnessed intense fighting same attention crises in the Taiwan Strait, South over strategically-placed airfields and naval bases China Sea, China-India border, or Hong Kong. within range of Australia. Following its string of However, the Chinese government has steadily lightning victories in Malaya, the Philippines, and increased its investments in the Pacific and availed the Dutch East Indies from December 1941 to itself of opportunities to oust the United States January 1942, Imperial Japan, operating from its and Australia from the region. Understanding base on nearby Truk, seized Rabaul on the island of the relative importance of contemporary New Britain in January 1942. Japanese control of Oceanian competition to these other flashpoints islands in the Solomon chain, ports in Papua New necessitates an examination of the region’s World Guinea, and elsewhere in the Central Pacific early War II experience. in the conflict threatened Australia from both air and sea and even forced the United States to shift With the Yap Island dispute serving as a diplomatic military priorities away from the preferred “Europe predecessor to the armed conflict over Oceania First” strategy to the bloody campaign in the in the Pacific War, Japanese forces battled Allied Solomon Islands. troops—predominantly consisting of Americans and Australians but also New Zealanders, Indians, The overall strategic goal of Japan’s defense indigenous Oceanians, and others—throughout perimeter in the South Pacific was to prevent the South Pacific from December 1941 until the American access to Japan’s core holdings, isolate very conclusion of the conflict in 1945. Lacking Australia, and force the U.S. Pacific Fleet into a in population and not as resource-rich as the true decisive engagement in unfavorable conditions. prize of the Dutch East Indies’ oil reserves, the Contemporary observers worried that Japan geopolitical value that rendered Oceania’s islands could erect an impenetrable aerial and naval worthwhile for Japanese and Allied militaries lay barrier preventing Allied forces from linking up in their role as basing from which air forces and and retaking Japan’s resource-rich conquests in naval units could reach out in a wide radius and East and Southeast Asia. Each island to fall under control the supply lines vital to Allied trans-oceanic Japan’s control further solidified their position and moved the perimeter outwards. 2 LEGACY OF THE PACIFIC WAR: 75 YEARS LATER In support of their overall objective, the South plane range of its neighbors, the Japanese Pacific islands provided vital basing and anchorage could also cover their advance with fighters for Japanese air and naval forces. If Japan had by building airstrips as they moved along. achieved uncontested control over the South Pacific islands, Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and With the island serving as a defensible hard point, Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) air forces could Japan could reach out with locally-based air forces have intercepted and strangled the sea lines and strike at Australian and American shipping of communication between the United States at will. As pointed out by historian Francis Pike and Australia, as well as enjoy the advantage of in Hirohito’s War: The Pacific War, 1941-1945, the land-based air units and local logistics depots IJN, operating from Papua New Guinea and the against any outside naval expeditionary force. Solomon Islands, could cut Australian supply lines; Japan quickly demonstrated the potential of seize the now-isolated Polynesian islands of New forward island basing when its air forces reached Caledonia, Samoa, and Fiji; and “deny airfields to out and bombed Darwin, Australia from 1942 the Allies, which could potentially threaten Japan’s to 1943. Although many of the Japanese planes major regional garrison at Rabaul.” launched from aircraft carriers, the control of the Despite their early defeats, however, Allied forces South Pacific islands provided forward protection blunted the renewed Japanese offensive against for the Imperial Japanese Navy’s primary pre- the Australian-administered Papua New Guinea war operating base on Truk and enhanced the by mid-1942 at the Battles of the Coral Sea and asymmetric naval operations that had become Kokoda Track before moving to address the threat Japan’s specialty. By controlling Oceania’s island from Rabaul. American troops advanced island- bases, Japan hoped to isolate and starve Australia by-island through the Solomon chain during the with regionally-based air and naval units, thus Guadalcanal campaign, while Australian forces obviating the need to invade the continent itself. simultaneously battled to force back Japanese Due to its prime geographic location and aerial forces on Papua New Guinea. Both campaigns’ and naval basing, the heavily-fortified Rabaul soon operational objectives aimed to reduce the threat became the focal point of the regional struggle. from the Japanese naval and air base on New Britain: “The immediate aim…was, not to defeat As John Miller, Jr. argues in United States Army in the Japanese nation, but to protect Australia and World War II: The War in the Pacific: New Zealand by halting the Japanese southward Well-situated in relation to Truk and the Palau advance from Rabaul toward the air and sea lines Islands, Rabaul possessed a magnificent of communication.” To accomplish this, Allied harbor as well as sites for several airfields. forces would have to capture nearby islands within Only 440 nautical miles southwest of bomber range. As the Japanese were by now dug Rabaul lies the New Guinea coast, while in and adept at defensive warfare, seizing these Guadalcanal is but 565 nautical miles to islands proved exceptionally bloody and protracted the southeast. Thus, the Japanese could on land, air, and sea. advance southward covered all the way by land-based bombers. And since none of the Within the Guadalcanal campaign, the struggle islands in the Bismarck Archipelago-New over the control of Henderson Airfield further Guinea-Solomon area lay beyond fighter- demonstrates the strategic significance of the 3 LEGACY OF THE PACIFIC WAR: 75 YEARS LATER South Pacific islands to regional air and naval indigenous aid and an increasing concentration superiority. Although constructed by Japanese of military forces, the Allies gradually retook troops, the airfield was quickly seized by American the Solomon Island chain by the fall of 1943 in Marines after their landing on Guadalcanal. A Operation Cartwheel. brutal struggle followed in which Japanese and American forces fought for control of the island Once the United States and Australia pushed and its “center of gravity” at Henderson Airfield. back Japanese forces to within bombing range The successful American seizure of Henderson of Japan’s key base at Rabaul in later 1943-1944, ultimately provided crucial air support and the focus of Allied strategy shifted to other areas interdiction of IJN forces by the Cactus Air Force in the Pacific, such as the Philippines.Although and greatly contributed to the overall victory on the initial plan was to take Rabaul, heavy bombing land and sea in the Guadalcanal Campaign. raids, naval sorties, and successful “island hopping” further north in the Central Pacific forced The Guadalcanal and Papua New Guinea Japan to withdraw its naval and air forces to leave campaigns also impart lessons as to the behind a dug-in garrison.