35
heavy losses, the USN stemmed and then turned the tide of Japanese conquest by early 1943.
After evicting the Japanese from Guadalcanal, the Allies (mainly the U.S. and Australia) took advantage of this opportunity to move north against other Japanese positions in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. This was the Southwest Pacific Area.
The USN, while assisting the Allied drives in the land-dominated Southwest Pacific, continued to wait for a chance to launch its own offensive in the Central Pacific Area, which was dominated by ocean. Such a drive was not opportunistic like the Southwest Pacific drive, but had been envisioned for almost 35 years prior to the war in the form of War Plan Orange (WP Orange).
The origins of WP Orange could be traced even further back to the last years of the 19th Century. During this time, many Japanese emigrated to the continental U.S. and Hawaii, and incurred the hostility of White Americans. In time, such acts aroused Japan's fury, who considered herself a great power after her defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Alarmed over Japan's growing influence in the Pacific, American war planners began to draft the forerunners of WP Orange in 1907.2
In brief, WP Orange pitted the U.S. (Blue) against Japan (Orange). Orange planners expected the U.S. to lose the Philippines early in the war (which was what happened). The USN would steam all the way across the Pacific to recapture the Philippines, defeat the IJN in a decisive battle, and lay siege to Japan, eventually forcing her surrender.3 As for China (and Hong Kong), Orange planners had cautioned against trying to establish an American presence there. The Japanese were expected to have firmly planted themselves in and around China by the start of the war, and it was advisable for the U.S. to not undertake a campaign on the mainland.4
The reality in 1943, however, was that there were other participants in the war, like Britain and China. Both had interests on the Asian mainland, and they could not be ignored. A common interest was Hong Kong, which both China and Britain wanted to recover after the war. At the start of the war, Hong Kong was a British responsibility, but