For all of those reasons, Operation MATTERHORN never fulfilled its promise. From the beginning it had been driven by FDR’s concern to keep the Allied coalition together in the CBI theater, and to preserve the possibility of drawing upon China’s bottomless manpower reserves in the final invasion of Japan. By mid-1944, it was becoming clear that the logistical and security challenges confronting matterhorn were too great to overcome. Meanwhile, a better alternative had presented itself: the Marianas, which U.S. forces seized between June and August of that year. Saipan, Guam, and Tinian offered
...more
