Guadalcanal in World War II: Conducting Multi-Domain Operations Before It Had a Name
Brandon Morgan | December 11, 2019
On Friday, November 8, audiences around the United States saw Midway, a dramatization of the climactic World War II battle at sea between the United States and Imperial Japan from June 4 through June 7, 1942. One historical narrative suggests Midway was the decisive turning point of the Pacific Campaign. A turning point in the context of historical military operations can be generally defined as a point at which the strategic initiative had shifted decidedly from one opposing combatant to another, where victory was a foregone conclusion for the latter. In the context of the Battle of Midway, this assertion has been occasionally contested; however, the question of what battle or campaign, if any, was the decisive turning point of the Pacific Theater of World War II is well worth revisiting. With greater historical analysis, the Battle of Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands campaign from August 1942 through February 1943 is more deserving of recognition as the turning point in the Pacific due to grave strategic error committed by the Japanese military. This recognition as the turning point is particularly important; through thorough examination of the Battle of Guadalcanal, military strategists will also discover that this campaign by land, air, and sea serves as a notable case study in the strategic application of the US Army and the US Air Force’s future operating concept of Multi-Domain Operations.
https://mwi.usma.edu/guadalcanal-world-war-ii-conducting-multi-domain-operations-name/
