Marching Orders: The Untold Story of How the American Breaking of the Japanese Secret Codes Led to the Defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan

by Bruce Lee

To explain: After the victory at Midway, American strategists have to revise their planning with breathtaking speed. An order to seize the Solomon Islands is issued on July 2 by the U.S. Chiefs of Staff. On July 5, the Japanese are discovered to be building an airfield on Guadalcanal. Almost overnight the island becomes the primary target of the First Marine Division, which lands on August 7. (Another regiment of the First Marines seizes the three small islands of Tulagi, Gavutu and Tanambogo.) Once again, it is a matter of a small American force being committed without sufficient supplies and support (in this case the American Navy was soundly trounced by the Japanese in the battle of Savo Island, and the Navy, fearful for its carriers, “bugged out,” withdrawing the ships carrying the Marines’ artillery and other vital supplies—to say nothing of the covering force and its desperately needed firepower—leaving the First Marines on their own in desperate straits). Only by good luck and extraordinary