Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
the central and southwest Pacific, the US. Navy and Army, with Allied forces’
participation, created SIGINT organizations charged with watching Japanese
activity across a huge expanse of ocean and land areas.
The United States, the British Commonwealth, and the NEI all entered the
war against Japan within hours in December 1941. Japanese air forces attacked
Hawaii on December 7 and the Philippines and Malaya a few hours later (on
December 8, Singapore time). On the 8th, Japan’s Army landed in Malaya; a
few days later her soldiers came ashore in the Philippines. Simultaneously, the
Japanese began moving along the Chinese coast toward Hong Kong. By
Christmas, the Allies’ situation had deteriorated markedly, with General
MacArthur’s forces abandoning Manila. Shortly thereafter, Hong Kong and
Wake Island fell, and Japanese troops pushed south through Malaya toward
Singapore. To stem Japanese advances and pull together the Allies, General
Marshall recommended creation of a single unified command for the SPA and
the SWPA. Shortly thereafter, the American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA)
Command came into existence; its commander was the British general
Archibald P. Wavell. Wavell’s staff officers from all services in the four nations
hurried to set up a coherent command structure, but these patchwork solutions
were far too late. Retreat in the Philippines led to eventual surrender, as it did
in Malaya. Even before the fall of Singapore, the Japanese had set out to seize
the oil-rich NEI. The Japanese Army took the oil refinery at Palembang,
Sumatra, by air assault on February 16,1942. On March 2, the Allies evacuated
Java, bringing to an end the ABDA Command.’
Japanese military and naval forces now threatened to cut the lines of
communication between North America and Australia-New Zealand by an
advance through the Solomon Islands to Fiji. Japan also threatened Australia
directly, organizing an invasion force to take Port Moresby, New Guinea. Many
in Australia feared that if Port Moresby was lost, the Australian Northern
Territory town of Darwin would be next. The Allies discerned the Japanese
intent through a series of messages decrypted at Pearl Harbor and Washington,
and they blocked the Port Moresby invasion force’s advance at the battle of the
Coral Sea in May 1942.3
The rapid Japanese expansion surprised even Japan’s senior admirals and
generals; their outward push slowed as the military took stock of the situation
and of the effects of both the battle of the Coral Sea-May 7 and 8,1942-and
then the battle of Midway-June 4 and 5, 1942. The war in the Pacific and in
the CBI area now assumed its long-term shape: successful prosecution by either
side depended on the adroit use of land-based and naval air power. The
destruction at Pearl Harbor, followed on December 10, 1941, by the Japanese
sinking of the Royal Navy’s battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse off the
Malayan coast, graphically demonstrated the key role of aircraft to the
remaining doubters.
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