Aleutian Islands War
June 3, 1942 - August 24, 1943
After securing strategically located bases during its war with China, Japan set out to create its long-coveted greater east Asia co-prosperity empire. Opening with a crushing attack upon Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 that temporarily neutralized the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the Imperial High Command quickly followed by dispatching large forces to seize the Philippines, Malaya, and the Netherlands East Indies and preparing plans for new bases from which to strike Australia and India. By June 1942 Japanese authority on the Asian mainland had extended beyond Malaya into Thailand and Burma. In the western Pacific, it encompassed most of the larger islands north of Australia and east of Midway.
In the wake of such astounding military success, Japan decided to push onward rather than consolidate its gains. Its next objectives, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, were clearly to be used as steppingstones to Australia. Between those objectives and the Australian continent was the Coral Sea, where in early May the American Navy had checked a powerful Japanese fleet in a battle that frustrated the enemy's hope for an early invasion of Australia.
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