Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Pacific Theatre of Operations

1945; Wiley; Volume: 105; Issue: 3/4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1789562

1475-4959

William J. Courtenay,

Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

T is a great honour to be asked by the Royal Geographical Society to deliver this lecture and, particularly, to have the opportunity of showing coloured films of some of the phases of the campaign in the south-west Pacific under General MacArthur and also the naval activities under Admiral Nimitz, in both of whose commands I have had the honour to serve during the last three years. By the treacherous blow which the Japanese Navy struck at Pearl Harbour in the Hawaiian islands on 7 December 1941, the Japanese hoped to be able to spread so far across the Pacific that before the British Empire and United States forces could challenge their initiative they would, at least, have ensured that the homelands of Japan were out of range of our strategic bombers. That advantage was maintained until, in recent months, by the reoccupation of Guam, Tinian, and Saipan in the Marianas islands, we were able to establish bases for Super-Fortresses within range of Japan. The extent to which the Japanese spread throughout the Pacific has not been appreciated in Great Britain, so long preoccupied by events nearer home. From Japan and Formosa they spread through China, Malaya, Singapore, the East Indies, New Guinea, the Bismarck archipelago, and the Admiralty islands; and they also spread through the Solomons. They possessed the Carolines under mandate and the Marianas, but they took Guam, which was United States territory. Farther east they possessed the Marshalls, but they spread into the Gilbert islands which were British, and threatened the Phoenix and Ellice islands farther south. By 15 February 1942 the Japanese had taken Singapore. Four days later they were bombing Darwin from Timor island, the limit of their southern advance, only some 500 miles distant. By early March they had entered Lae and Salamaua on the north New Guinea coast and were attempting to cross to Port Moresby, to form a base for the invasion of Australia. They had mustered an army of about 250,000 for that invasion and at that time could easily have taken Darwin, for, with the British Navy engaged elsewhere and the U.S. Navy temporarily out of action, the seas lay open. The Japanese did not take Darwin because it led only into the Australian bush. Nearly 1000 miles south of Darwin lies Alice Springs in the heart of Australia. Except for a light-gauge railway for the first 200 or 300 miles there was no communication except by bush track. Australian and American engineers were allowed ninety days in which to build a highway along that track for convoys carrying troops and equipment to defend Darwin, as it was not then possible to defend the town from the sea. That great highway was completed in eighty-eight days and is an outstanding engineering achievement of the war in the south-west Pacific. Along it since 1942 three great convoys have left Alice Springs each morning, carrying troops, equipment, and supplies over the 1000 miles to Darwin.