Operation KE

Dennis R. Letourneau's study turns to a part of the Pacific war that has drawn little attention: the aerial fighting that accompanied Japan's withdrawal from Guadalcanal in early 1943. The evacuation succeeded, and the book argues that this owed much to the soundness of Japanese planning and execution. Long-standing accounts hold that the Americans let the withdrawal go because the US Pacific high command judged that stopping it was not worth the effort. Letourneau challenges that view. He maintains that the Cactus Air Force and the naval units based on Guadalcanal worked hard to disrupt the operation, believing the destroyer runs known as the Tokyo Express were carrying reinforcements and supplies to the Japanese 17th Army. Other American forces elsewhere in the South Pacific made a limited attempt to intervene, of doubtful execution, and were misled into a passive, wait-and-see stance.

The core of the book covers the air war between the Cactus Air Force and the US 13th Air Force on one side and Japanese naval and army air units on the other, from mid-December 1942 to mid-February 1943. It examines American air strikes against the six destroyer runs linked to the evacuation, along with strikes on Japanese merchant shipping and mutual attacks on enemy bases meant to suppress air operations. Its aim is to establish what truly happened, to explain why the evacuation succeeded, and to show why Cactus could not prevent it. Early chapters assess how ready each side's air forces in the South Pacific were to support or oppose the evacuation.

The central section gives a detailed account of the air and sea engagements, including bombing raids, fighter sweeps, base suppression sorties, and naval operations, in the lead-up to and during the sequence of connected events that made up the withdrawal. The closing chapters weigh the operation at both strategic and tactical levels, examining how Japan planned and carried it out and how the Americans tried to interrupt it. The author concludes that both sides entered the operation with shortcomings, especially in using their resources and procedures efficiently and in coping with a difficult operating environment, which limited both their ability to carry out and to contest the withdrawal.

In the author's reading, Japan built a fairly sound strategy around the weapons and methods then available in the South Pacific, playing to its own strengths and to its opponent's weaknesses. The book gives weight to Japan's use of the newly built airstrip at Munda in the central Solomons, which fit a wider plan to develop Munda and Vila into major forward air bases against any Allied advance toward Rabaul through the Solomons. The United States, the author argues, repeatedly misjudged Japanese intentions and pursued a cautious offensive approach, which blunted its efforts to counter the evacuation. Several unwise tactical decisions and a poor allocation of resources further weakened American efforts.