Prados - Islands of destiny: the Solomons campaign and the eclipse of the rising sun

THE SOLOMONS CAMPAIGN AND THE
ECLIPSE OF THE RISING SUN

JOHN PRADOS

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First published by NAL Caliber, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, October 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright John Prados, 2012

Maps by Jason Petho

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

Prados, John.

Islands of destiny: the Solomons campaign and the eclipse of the rising sun/John Prados.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-101-60195-2

1. World War, 19391945CampaignsSolomon Islands. 2. Guadalcanal, Battle of, Solomon Islands, 19421943. I. Title. II. Title: Solomons campaign and the eclipse of the rising sun.

D767.98.P76 2012

940.5426593dc23 2012011417

Set in Spectrum MT STD

Designed by Alissa Amell

Printed in the United States of America

PUBLISHERS NOTE

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

For World War II veterans everywhere

LIST OF MAPS

NOTE TO THE READER

Throughout the text Japanese names are rendered in the Japanese style, with family name first followed by given name. For consistency with the vast body of literature with which the reader will be familiar, however, diacritical marks in the names have been omitted.

There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it.

Nathaniel Hawthorne,
The Scarlet Letter

INTRODUCTION

This is a book I have wanted to read for a very long time. Long enough, in fact, that I wrote it myself. Raised on a diet of heroic accounts of the Good War, increasingly detailed histories of every campaign and battle, the conflict which began at Pearl Harbor and ended with Japans surrender became one of my special interests. Several aspects of the Pacific war fascinated or frustrated. One was the turning point of World War II in the Pacific. It seemed almost an entrenched interpretation among participants and historians that the Battle of Midway in June 1942 represented that decisive event. Japan might as well have surrendered right then. But for a young enthusiast this did not sit right. It did not take a great deal of exploration of the sources to realize that after Midway the military balance still favored the Japanese. The real turning point had to lie elsewhere, and my reading and research eventually supplied convincing evidence that the moment of decision occurred during the campaign for the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. In roughly a year and a half, starting with the Allied invasion of Guadalcanal and ending in the Allies siege of the Japanese bastion of Rabaul, the war situation was transformed. Islands of Destiny is my exploration of why and how that happened.

Among the many reasons that the Solomons campaign became the turning point that it did is the stellar performance of Allied intelligencenot just that of the United States but also Australian, New Zealand, and British intelligence officers, who contributed mightily to enabling thin forces to counter the adversary. Japanese intelligence proved much less adept. I discussed these issues some time ago in my book Combined Fleet Decoded, but, as a general war history, that work could not attain the depth and richness of what is presented here. More recently I have maintained that the next great challenge for historians of World War II is to take our increasingly deep knowledge of the shadow war and rewrite the battle and campaign histories incorporating the spooky side, showing much more concretely the contributions of the shadow warriors in proper relation to the visible evolution of military and naval combat. I believe that achieving that synthesis has truly become possible. My book