Japanese grand strategy called for maintaining an offensive posture. ![]() No American aircraft carriers had been present at Pearl Harbor, and their threat to future Japanese operations demanded immediate attention. ![]() The repair facilities at Pearl Harbor had survived the attack relatively undamaged, and vast stores of fuel oil were untouched. Navy had been crippled at Pearl Harbor, it was readily apparent to senior Japanese naval commanders that the Americans were far from finished. Early the next month, a Japanese offensive against Port Moresby on the southeastern tip of New Guinea was thwarted with the unexpected defeat of the Imperial Navy at the Battle of the Coral Sea. Jimmy Doolittle seemingly came out of nowhere and bombed Tokyo. Nevertheless, in mid-April 1942, American planes under the command of Lt. ![]() The military prowess of the United States in the region had been crippled by the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, the capture of Wake Island, and the disastrous fall of the Philippines. Although the empire stretched from the Dutch East Indies to the Solomon archipelago, encompassing tiny Wake Island nearly 2,000 miles distant in the Central Pacific and occupying great swaths of Chinese territory, its long-term security remained tenuous at best. Despite more than a decade of triumphs in Asia and the Pacific, by the spring of 1942 the Japanese military establishment was in a somber mood.
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