CINCPAC's Log: A Line in the Sand

I've been pondering over the increasingly precarious situation in the South Pacific where a Japanese invasion fleet has been spotted approaching Baker Island. The enemy must know that I have aircraft based there. He could or could not know that I have Catalina seaplanes based there, most of them since evacuating to Canton Island to the SE.

He knows that I've actively deployed assets to that theatre, including submarines (which torpedoed one of his transports off Kwajeilen) and a carrier (the Enterprise's strike last week against Molealap). Yet he has proceeded to advance on an island he knows I've expressed interest in, and coincidentally (or not) that I've drawn a tenuous line in the sand.

My attack strength includes three battlegroups: one carrier with two heavy cruisers and six destroyers, a cruiser group of two heavy cruisers and five destroyers, and a southern group sailing from Canton with four destroyers. All have gotten up steam and are moving to intercept the Japanese fleet. Unfortunately, none of these assets will make contact before the Japanese have been put ashore.

What perturbs me is what I don't see, and what I don't know. No Japanese carriers have been seen in strength in over three weeks. One carrier, though never spotted, had launched a strike of bombers against Wake Island nine days ago. It has since disappeared. Three weeks is plenty of time for the Kido Butai, a monstrous force of six fleet carriers, to have returned to Japan to refuel and return to the eastern theatres. If not the full concentration of carriers, then certainly even one Japanese carrier off the Marshalls is enough to spark a serious battle over Baker Island.

The fact that I've deployed submarines west of the Marshalls is in fear of this possibility: that Japanese carriers have been transferred to the eastern theatre. As such, they have seen none. Catalina flights from Canton Island have seen nothing, but it would not be hard for a Jap carrier force to lurk just beyond the distance of my spotter planes and still sprint to the aide of their Baker Island operations.

Should I concentrate my forces in Congo now moving toward Baker Island? That would delay my time of contact by one day, but I would be better prepared for a surprise. Even if there are no Japanese capital ships in the area, will my reaction prompt my opponent to converge his forces in this theatre in hopes of bringing my entire carrier force to battle? If so, then I am already in trouble, because I am not prepared for that decisive battle with only three carriers available. The Yorktown will not arrive at Pearl for another two or three weeks. The enemy can certainly bring me to decisive battle at Canton or Palmyra. Canton is the more likely possibility.

These are my operational and strategic dilemmas as they stand. We shall see within the next three days what will transpire.