US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

WATCHTOWER 241
the New Hebrides or Ellice Island groups worried the Naval Planners, New
Caledonia was well within air range from the New Hebrides, being only
300 to 400 miles away to the South. The Fijis were at the extreme air range
from Funafuti in the Ellice Islands, 560 miles to the North.
Ten days before Singapore fell, Admiral King forwarded a Navy War
Plans Division paper, d;afted by Rear Admiral Turner, to the Joint Chiefs,
recommending the establishment of an advance base at Funafuti in the Ellice
Islands to provide:
a. an outpost coverage of Fiji—Samoa.
b. a linkage post toward the Solomon Islands.
c. support for future offensive operations in the Southwest Pacific.Z*
Three days after Singapore fell to the Japenese on 15 February 1942,
Admiral King proposed to the Chief of Staff, U. S. Army, that the Tonga
Islands, 200 miles southeast of the Fijis, and Efate, 500 miles to the west
of the Fijis in the New Hebrides, be garrisoned. He asked that the Chief of
Staff
agree to this proposition, and immediately initiate planning and the assembly
of troops and equipment, with a view to dispatching these garrisons as soon
as necessaryshipping can be found.z7
The day before Admiral King signed this letter, Brigadier General Eisen-
hower who was to fleet up to be Chief of the Army War Plans Division on
16 February 1942 was recording:
The Navy wants to take all the islands in the Pacific-have them held by
Army troops, to become bases for Army pursuit and bombers. Then! the Navy
will have a safe place to sail its vessels. But they will not go further forward
than our air (Army) can assure superiority.26
It was Admiral King’s position that the vital line of communications
through Samoa, Fiji, and New Caledonia was “too exposed” to air raids
arising after the anticipated Japanese seizure of intermediate and nearby
islands and that Tongatabu in the Tonga Islands would be the ideal location
for “the principal operating [logistic support} naval base in the South
Pacific.” 2’The Tonga Islands were about 1,100 miles along the direct convoy
‘JCS 5.
n COMINCH to C/S USA, letter, FF1/A16/c/FI, Ser 00105 of 18 Feb. 1942, and 00149
of 2 Mar. 1942.
a Quoted in Matloff and Snell, S~mtegic Planning, p. 154.
= King’s Record, pp. 377, 383.