This is a book I have wanted to read for a very long time. Long enough, in fact, that I wrote it myself. Raised on a diet of heroic accounts of the Good War, increasingly detailed histories of every campaign and battle, the conflict which began at Pearl Harbor and ended with Japan’s surrender became one of my special interests. Several aspects of the Pacific war fascinated or frustrated. One was the “turning point” of World War II in the Pacific. It seemed almost an entrenched interpretation among participants and historians that the Battle of Midway in June 1942 represented that decisive event. Japan might as well have surrendered right then. But for a young enthusiast this did not sit right. It did not take a great deal of exploration of the sources to realize that after Midway the military balance still favored the Japanese. The real turning point had to lie elsewhere, and my reading and research eventually supplied convincing evidence that the moment of decision occurred during the campaign for the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. In roughly a year and a half, starting with the Allied invasion of Guadalcanal and ending in the Allies’ siege of the Japanese bastion of Rabaul, the war situation was transformed. Islands of Destiny is my exploration of why and how that happened.
Among the many reasons that the Solomons campaign became the turning point that it did is the stellar performance of Allied intelligence—not just that of the United States but also Australian, New Zealand, and British intelligence officers, who contributed mightily to enabling thin forces to counter the adversary. Japanese intelligence proved much less adept. I discussed these issues some time ago in my book Combined Fleet Decoded, but, as a general war history, that work could not attain the depth and richness of what is presented here. More recently I have maintained that the next great challenge for historians of World War II is to take our increasingly deep knowledge of the shadow war and rewrite the battle and campaign histories incorporating the spooky side, showing much more concretely the contributions of the shadow warriors in proper relation to the visible evolution of military and naval combat. I believe that achieving that synthesis has truly become possible. My book Normandy Crucible shows the insights permitted by this approach for the Normandy breakout of 1944. In Islands of Destiny, I return to the Pacific Theater and apply the method to document what I argue is the real turning point of the war against Japan.
A Pacific history affords special advantage in this endeavor. Naval and air operations proceed by means of discreet, individual missions by fleets and formations. The historian can investigate the intelligence impact on such activities with specificity and present them in detail. This book does exactly that. The Solomons campaign is an especially fruitful illustration because it shows the effects of different kinds of intelligence activity—what I term the “pillars of intelligence”—in cooperation with one another. The impact of these pillars, as the reader will discover in these pages, was literally stunning. The Solomons became the decisive campaign in the Pacific in large part due to the contributions of intelligence.
By no means was intelligence the sole factor in the outcome of this struggle. The wisdom and determination of individuals, the quality of forces on both sides, the training and preparation of armies and navies, all played their roles. Technological developments were quite important too, and put the sharp point on the spear of armed force. Islands of Destiny discusses those matters as well. In addition it shines some light on the conflict’s impact upon South Pacific islanders.
As a campaign fought among the islands, the war in the Solomons proved to be overwhelmingly about air and naval bases. The building and operating of them, their capture, the relative desirability of sites on different islands drove the fighting and determined its progress. Strategy revolved around obtaining the best combination of bases. In contrast to the war in Europe, where ground forces sought to conquer territory, in the South Pacific soldiers and Marines fought to secure possession of bases or sites for them. As a consequence, although the operations of all kinds of outfits are covered here, the narrative centers on the activities of naval and air forces, which were the arms the ground troops supported.
When I was a boy reading this history, I was repeatedly struck by its one-sidedness. Some authors were better than others, and official histories made a more explicit effort to look at both sides. There were very few works from a Japanese perspective. That grated. In Combined Fleet Decoded I noted that the problem for historians of the Pacific war is to explain how the Imperial Navy, so powerful in its day, could have achieved so little in exchange for its utter destruction. One element that sustains my proposition that the Solomons marked the turning point is that during this campaign the Japanese remained capable of giving as good as they got. Deterioration was just setting in. In the Solomons the Imperial Navy inflicted eleven major warship (cruiser and above) losses and endured the sinking of nine of its own big ships. But from the end of this campaign until their surrender, the Japanese managed to sink just two major enemy warships while losing dozens of their own. Examining this question is impossible without sustained attention to the Japanese—and to the intelligence.
Meanwhile, the focus on Allied actors and strategy in existing accounts also cried out for equivalent consideration given to the adversary. Historians have moved somewhat in that direction during recent years, and this book furthers the trend. With the Allied side of the war as familiar as it is, what is truly fresh—and fascinating—is more of the story told from the Japanese point of view. I have provided adequate coverage of the Allies while devoting considerable space to the little-known adversary.
Islands of Destiny is a classic military history. While the memory-versus-history debate continues, and works focused solely on personal experiences have furnished some vivid narratives, I prefer the big picture. This does not mean that individuals are ignored—the reader will find characters in these pages whose stories are quite extraordinary. Rather it means that individual feats are integrated into an overall narrative that explores every element of the story. A primary focus on memory impedes the search for larger truths. Identifying this campaign as a turning point, and presenting my reasons for that conclusion, requires a level of analysis beyond the personal narrative. I have nevertheless gone further into such narratives than elsewhere, as in the Normandy book. Here the reader will find accounts of Japanese sailors and soldiers that illuminate important themes and illustrate the Solomons experience in unprecedented detail. The idea of showing both sides is carried down to the personal level.
It is remarkable that at this remove, with so much having been written on the Pacific war, it is possible to present an account that is not merely derivative. I do indeed owe much to the giants in this field, and knowledgeable readers will recognize my agreement—and occasional differences—with arguments advanced by such historians as Samuel Eliot Morison, E. B. Potter, John Toland, Paul S. Dull, John B. Lundstrom, Richard Frank, Eric Bergerud, Robert Sherrod, Ron Spector, John Winton, and others, along with less well-known authors such as Samuel B. Griffith II, Edwin P. Hoyt, and Henry Sakaida. I have made substantial use of memoirs from both sides, official histories and documents, periodicals, and other material.
A few words are in order regarding Japanese sources, and I also wish to make special acknowledgment of groups and individuals who have labored in this vineyard with great benefit to the historian. I am not fluent in Japanese nor affluent enough to afford the kind of research and translation services required to access the Japanese literature. This led me to search for material that had been translated into English, which I have mined to considerable effect, as the narrative will demonstrate. The focus here on intelligence also opened the door to a huge array of Japanese information that had been translated at the time by Allied personnel, not just codebreakers but Nisei experts of the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, the South Pacific Command, the Japanese language officers of the U.S. Navy, and other intelligence personnel. Their work afforded access to diaries, ships’ logs, after-action reports, command directives, interrogations of captured Japanese, and a wealth of similar material. Let me give special thanks for their service.
Another acknowledgment needs to be made to the people who worked for the United States Strategic Bombing Survey and those who served in intelligence with the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan after the war. Their efforts to uncover the Japanese side, including finding Imperial Navy veterans who became key intermediaries and sources, a host of interviews with former Japanese officers, the set of high-command directives, the action and movement records of major Japanese warships, a mountain of technical studies of the Japanese war effort and operations, and the set of monographs commissioned from Imperial Navy (and Army) officers. Together the intelligence records plus the postwar investigations furnished much of the raw material used here.
In addition I want to acknowledge the efforts of certain individuals whose enthusiasm for the subject has made available incomparable resources. The first of these people is the author John Toland. In researching his book The Rising Sun, Toland did what I could not—he went to Japan, hired a translator, and interviewed many Japanese veterans. Moreover, he did that in the 1960s, when many more of them were alive than is now the case, and with their memories fresher. Toland’s careful notes, available at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, encompass far more than what he used in his history of Japan’s war, and form a vital set of source material. Less ambitious but also drawn from Japanese participants is the work of Haruko and Theodore Cook. Historians Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, through their association with Gordon W. Prange, developed an interest in the Japanese that led them to produce several collections of documents concerning Pearl Harbor and also, of key importance, a translation of the diary of fleet chief of staff Ugaki Matome. Finally I cannot leave the issue of sources without extending special thanks to historian Anthony Tully, author of important reinvestigations of the battles of Midway and Surigao Strait. On his Web site, www.CombinedFleet.com, Tully has created a priceless collection of material, much of it his own but also in cooperation with like-minded enthusiasts, on virtually every ship in the Imperial Navy as well as numerous related subjects.
Many persons helped in the compilation of the sources I used here. I am indebted to Jane Smith-Hutton, an OSS officer and wife of a senior U.S. naval intelligence expert, who provided important source materials and spent many hours illuminating for me the inner ethos of the Navy’s World War II intelligence community. I had similar conversations with Phillip Jacobsen, one of the Navy’s intelligence radio monitors actually on Guadalcanal. At a key moment in the writing Ron Spector lent me a vital set of documents. Louis Fisher graciously read a portion of the manuscript and commented on certain issues of international law. For special advice on the project I wish to thank Rena Szabo Masters. I also want to acknowledge John E. Taylor, Judy Thorne, and Richard von Doenhoff at the National Archives (NARA). At the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library of NARA let me thank Stephen Plotkin and Michael Diamond. At the Naval Operational Archives I am indebted to Michael Walker, in particular, as well as to John Hodges, Kathleen Lloyd, and Gina Akers. At the Roosevelt Library I was assisted by Susan Y. Elter, John C. Ferris and Robert Parks. Elizabeth Mays of the Navy Department Library, Linda O’Doughda of the U.S. Naval Institute, and Edward Finney Jr. of the Naval Historical Center all provided valuable help. Some of these persons have passed away, retired, or gone on to other things since I conducted this research. Jane Smith-Hutton, an elegant and fine lady, passed away in 2002. Phil Jacobsen left us four years later, my last letter to him never answered. I especially regret the passing in 2008 of archivist John Taylor, who merits extra mention as a tower of wisdom, insight, and knowledge of the source material for many generations of researchers. Another figure, John Ferris, has become a noted historian of intelligence. Ellen Pinzur read and edited the manuscript and extended her usual cheerful support. These persons, individually and together, have contributed much to what is good about this book. I alone am responsible for its faults and omissions.
—John Prados
Washington, DC
July 2011