Foreword
For the United States, full involvement in World War II began and ended in the Pacific Ocean. Although the accepted grand strategy of the war was the defeat of Germany first, the sweep of Japanese victory in the weeks and months after Pearl Harbor impelled the United States to move as rapidly as it could to stem the enemy tide of conquest in the Pacific. Shocked as they were by the initial attack, the American people were also united in their determination to defeat Japan, and the Pacific war became peculiarly their own affair. In this great theater it was the United States that ran the war, and had the determining voice in answering questions of strategy and command as they arose. The natural environment made the prosecution of war in the Pacific of necessity an inter-service effort, and any real account of it must, as this work does, take into full account the views and actions of the Navy as well as those of the Army and its Air Forces.
These are the factors—a predominantly American theater of war covering nearly one-third the globe, and a joint conduct of war by land, sea, and air on the largest scale in American history—that make this volume on the Pacific war of particular significance today. It is the capstone of the eleven volumes published or being published in the Army’s World War II series that deal with military operations in the Pacific area, and it is one that should command wide attention from the thoughtful public as well as the military reader in these days of global tension.
James A. Norell
Brigadier General, U.S.A.
Chief of Military History
Washington, D.C.
5 April 1961
The Author
Louis Morton, now Professor of History at Dartmouth College, was a member of the Office of the Chief of Military History from 1946 to 1959. During that time, he served as chief of the Pacific Section, responsible for the preparation of the 11-volume subseries on The War in the Pacific, deputy to the Chief Historian, and historical adviser for the post-World War II program. The present volume is the second he has written for the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II. The first, The Fall of the Philippines, was published in 1953. In addition, he has contributed substantially to other publications of this office, including Command Decisions, and has published numerous articles in professional military and historical journals.
A graduate of New York University, Mr. Morton received his doctorate from Duke University in 1938 in the field of American colonial history. After a brief teaching career, he joined the Williamsburg Restoration, which published his study, Robert Carter of Nomini Hall, and then in May 1942 volunteered for military service. Most of his Army career was spent in the Pacific on historical assignments, and it was during this period that his interest in military history began. He has served as consultant and lecturer at a number of military and civilian institutions and teaches military history at Dartmouth.