The greatest gamble in military history... and why it backfired

PEARL HARBOR WAS PLANNED BY THE JAPANESE AS A KNOCKOUT BLOW AGAINST AMERICA. INSTEAD, IT WOKE A SLEEPING GIANT AND HELPED GUARANTEE ALLIED VICTORY IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR. ROBERT LYMAN REVEALS WHY

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THE Allies took joint responsibility for supporting China, an agreement which was solidified in August 1943 by the creation of the joint South East Asia Command (SEAC), with Admiral Louis Mountbatten as "supremo" and the American Lieutenant General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell as his deputy. This was called the China, Burma, India (CBI) theatre.

In the Pacific, the Americans split their forces into two: the forces of General Douglas MacArthur in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) and those of Admiral Chester Nimitz in what was, effectively, the north and eastern Pacific. In short, the aim of SEAC was to defend India, enable military aid to China and to ensure the Japanese could not benefit from their occupation of Burma. The aim of SWPA was to steadily roll back the Japanese occupation of the islands that ran down to the Solomons, to protect Australia and to limit and then remove Japan's ill-gotten gains all the way back up to the Philippines.

In 1942 the Allies made desperate attempts in the Pacific to stop the Japanese onrush.

On land, in Burma, Japanese offensive adventures were not stopped until mid-1944, but in the SWPA, in fighting over the Owen Stanley Ranges in New Guinea and in the Solomon Islands at Guadalcanal where the Japanese were building an airfield, the Japanese military adventure ground to a shuddering halt in the face of tough, uncompromising commitment by young Australians and Americans thrown into battle, ill-prepared but determined to do their duty.

The doughty Australians slogged it out over the famous Kokoda Trail in mid-1942, amidst the challenges of terrible terrain, an impossible line of communication back to Port Moresby and the deluging monsoon.

Later in the year the Americans landed on Guadalcanal and in grinding battles forced a Japanese withdrawal by the middle of 1943.