BLAZING STAR, SETTING SUN
AFTER THE SOLOMON ISLANDS CAMPAIGN, THE US WENT ON THE OFFENSIVE, RELENTLESSLY PUSHING THE JAPANESE WAR MACHINE TOWARDS ITS SUNSET
Glowing in its attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Japanese Imperial Navy began to occupy islands throughout the western Pacific. Tokyo’s goal was to create a buffer against attack from the US and its allies, to ensure Japanese mastery over the southwest Pacific.
Eight months later, the US carried out its first major amphibious landing of the war at Guadalcanal. This marked the commencement of Operation Watchtower, the American offensive of the campaign. The Allied invasion ignited a ferocious struggle marked by seven major naval battles, numerous clashes ashore and almost continuous air combat. For six months, US forces fought to hold the island. In the end they prevailed, and the Allies took the first vital step in driving back the Japanese in the Pacific theatre.
Jeffrey R. Cox offers an authoritative account of the Solomon Islands campaign, starting with Guadalcanal and followed in quick succession by surprise US landings on the islands of Tulagi and Florida on the morning of 9 August 1942. These seaborne operations opened the way for America to put Japanese naval power on the run. As the author points out, it was far from a walkover. This was tragically illustrated by the Savo Island debacle of 8 and 9 August. “The full brunt of the Japanese attack fell on the 8-inch-armed heavy cruisers and their screening destroyers guarding the western approaches to the invasion beachheads,” says Cox. “It was a disaster, the worst defeat in US Navy history.”
Japan’s fate was nevertheless sealed. According to Cox, Operation Watchtower “was more than a military operation. It was the changing of a mindset, from desperate hunted to opportunistic hunter and, for the enemy, vice versa”. The tide of war in the Pacific had turned in America’s favour.