Valiant Women by Lena S. Andrews

Author:Lena S. Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

Many of the women who performed best in these training roles had been teachers in their civilian lives. They were used to learning about complex topics with which they had no direct experience, distilling them down to discernible bits, and then walking others through the task. Other women may not have been teachers but came from exactly the sort of mechanical or mathematical backgrounds that made them adept at learning the complicated commands and calculations necessary for teaching difficult aerial maneuvers. And others, like Ahn, were just extremely bright. Whether they were teachers, tinkerers, or intelligent women, military planners reasoned they would make perfect Link training instructors. Ahn and her fellow trainers’ newly acquired skills were quickly applied in the Navy’s push to get trained aviators to the Pacific.

The Japanese, even more so than the Germans, understood that time was not on their side. If they were going to take on the American behemoth, which dwarfed them in both manufacturing and military might, the Japanese recognized it would require surprise and speed at every turn. As a result, their strategy was predicated on inflicting a massive series of rapid, consecutive blows to key American holdings in the Pacific, pushing the Allies out of the region and buying them time to dig in.

With this strategy guiding them, the Japanese moved to quickly expand their defensive perimeter. Following the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines with a series of brutally efficient assaults in 1942, the Japanese extended their position deep into the western Pacific and the South China Sea, dislodging and killing thousands of Americans along the way. The US Marines stationed on Wake Island, for instance, totaling just under five hundred men, managed to forestall the Japanese offensive for several days, until the Japanese returned with two aircraft carriers and forced a surrender. Near simultaneously, the Japanese extended their reach into Guam, making quick work of the small Marine Corps outfit posted there. By the spring of 1942, the Japanese had arrived at the doorstep of Australia and New Zealand, leaving American commanders reeling and furious as they surveyed the damage.

Facing this onslaught, American naval leadership, headed by Admiral King, the commander in chief of the US Fleet and chief of naval operations, pushed forcefully for an emphasis on retaking the initiative in the Pacific in 1942 and 1943. The United States needed to answer Japanese aggression, he argued, before it crept any farther out into the Pacific and cut off American access to key allies and supply routes in the region.

Roosevelt, in part, was inclined to agree with King. He knew that there needed to be some response in the Pacific, but his rationale was as much based on political calculation as it was on military strategy. The longstanding Allied strategy may have been “Germany first,” but Roosevelt knew the Japanese could not be left untouched in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor—the American public would not stand for it. In response, Roosevelt had approved a targeted attempt to reverse the Japanese progress in the Pacific in 1942 and 1943.

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