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XIV Corps and Land Component Command Operations in the Solomon Islands Campaign, 1942–1944

 

Maj. Evan L. Horner, U.S. Army

 

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In recent decades, China and Russia have developed antiaccess/area denial (A2/AD) systems to challenge U.S. and allied dominance in air, land, maritime, and space domains.¹ The competition for access and preclusion has led to the development of A2/AD and counter-A2/AD strategies to protect spheres of influence amid challenges to the international order. As the United States and its allies incorporate new techniques and technologies to gain access to contested environments, operational planners encounter similar challenges to previous generations when adversaries established exclusion areas. Studying these historical strategies offers valuable insights, especially as the Army focuses efforts across domains to overcome AD systems.

In the Pacific Theater during World War II, the United States adapted and innovated to counter Japan’s AD strategies across the land, sea, and air domains. As this theater offensive began, the South Pacific and Southwest Pacific commanders fought to gain access to the Solomon Islands, where they encountered numerous challenges against a Japanese military with experiential and technological superiority. In the Solomon Islands campaign, the operations of the XIV Corps provide a historical example for modern multidomain operations, highlighting how a corps headquarters and land component command can effectively combine joint capabilities across domains. Specifically, the XIV Corps exemplified three critical functions relevant to Army doctrine by optimizing resources in a contested maritime environment, apportioning joint air and maritime effects to support land operations, and creating tactical advantages through cross-domain joint integration.

Due to emerging adversary capabilities, the U.S. military no longer plans to sustain domain dominance indefinitely. The 2025 update to Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations, is framed on the development of A2/AD systems, aiming to improve the Army’s integration of joint effects through multidomain operations. FM 3-0 maintains the division as the principal tactical formation, reflecting the division’s ability to plan, manage resources, and integrate effects with agility in large-scale combat operations (LSCO).² In a change from the 2022 edition of FM 3-0, the Army refined the definition of convergence as “an outcome created by the concerted employment of capabilities against combinations of decisive points to create effects against a system, formation, or decision maker, or in a specific geographic area.”³ The division’s capacity enables subordinate echelons to respond to the temporal cycle of convergence and isolation from joint effects in LSCO. This periodization requires Army forces to remain agile to exploit during windows of convergence and to foster endurance during periods of isolation.⁴ As the Army improves its flexibility and adaptability under the division headquarters, the joint force and higher Army headquarters’ ability to shape and resource the battlefield will directly support or undermine the division’s tactical efforts.

Fundamental to the descriptions of agile divisions is the role of the corps headquarters, which can serve as a joint force land component command. In this role, the corps headquarters is vital in integrating joint capabilities for subordinate forces at the operational and tactical levels. As corps headquarters focus on major land operations to defeat critical enemy systems, they must ensure that divisions and other maneuver elements have the necessary support to achieve their objectives within the broader joint campaign.⁵ The corps’ ability to apportion and integrate joint capabilities to the appropriate echelon will directly determine the success or failure of divisions in a contest with peer adversaries.⁶ As an example of adaptation in contact, the XIV Corps’ efforts to improve division freedom of maneuver during World War II exemplify the doctrinal expectations of the corps and the joint force land component command headquarters in a multidomain battlefield.

Strategic Context

With the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Japan delivered a significant setback to U.S. capabilities in the Pacific. The United States planned for a potential conflict with Imperial Japan, but War Plan Orange, the War Department’s strategic plan to counter the Japanese, anticipated an offensive strategy in the central Pacific. In War Plan Orange-3, the U.S. Army Forces Far East (USAFFE) planned a lengthy delaying action to provide time for a decisive naval battle, relying on the U.S. Navy’s arrival from the Hawaiian Islands. However, this became unfeasible with the disarray at Pearl Harbor, and the United States was forced to develop contingency plans to defend critical infrastructure and mobilize for war.⁷

The Japanese had been preparing for the expansion of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” to establish their own imperial influence and secure the vast resources essential for sustaining their empire.⁸ However, to achieve this objective, the Japanese first needed to oust the United States and Western powers from the South China Sea. On 8 December, as President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the United States following the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese pressed the attack and commenced their invasion of the Philippines.

As the Japanese prepared for an amphibious invasion, they initiated their assault on the Philippines with an air raid, destroying USAFFE’s air capabilities on Clark Field.⁹ With the USAFFE isolated from the sea and without airpower, the Philippine defense was doomed to a single-domain resistance destined for failure. As the Luzon forces retreated to the Bataan Peninsula, Roosevelt ordered Gen. Douglas MacArthur to depart Corregidor on 12 March 1942, leaving Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright in command of USAFFE’s ongoing resistance.¹⁰ With dwindling supplies and without relief on the way, Wainwright surrendered the Philippines on 8 May, marking the United States’ second defeat early in the war.

Concurrent with the Allied resistance in the Philippines, the Japanese continued their aggressive expansion into French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and New Guinea. On 23 January 1942, the Japanese began aerial bombardment of the fortifications at Rabaul and an amphibious invasion of New Britain, mirroring their approach during the operations at Luzon. Rabaul, a protected port chosen for its strategic position controlling sea lanes north of New Guinea and west of the Solomon Islands, would torment the U.S. and Australian alliance in the southwest Pacific for the next two years.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) continued to seize territory in the Solomon Islands, pushing the limits of their operational reach (see map 1).¹¹ The Japanese understood that Allied control of southern Papua and New Caledonia was the lifeline to the Australian and U.S. resistance in the southwest Pacific and the only means of contesting Japanese expansion near Rabaul.¹² As the Japanese threatened to extend their control to Port Moresby and isolate the Australian continent, the U.S. Navy responded with the first carrier battle of the war in the Battle of the Coral Sea.¹³ Although the Japanese had been temporarily contained near New Guinea, their ongoing expansion in the Solomon Islands remained a concern for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Guadalcanal: Developing in Contact

The United States, alarmed by the continued Japanese expansion, established defensive positions in New Caledonia and awaited its opportunity to begin offensive operations. The Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the first offensive on 2 July 1942 and ordered Allied forces in the Pacific to launch a limited offensive to stop the Japanese advance.¹⁴ MacArthur, now the commander of the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), and Adm. Robert Ghormley, the commander of the South Pacific Area (SOPAC), objected to immediately launching landings in Guadalcanal and Tulagi. However, the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected the dual recommendation and ordered an immediate advance, citing the Japanese development of positions in the Solomon Islands. After weeks of planning, the 1st Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942.¹⁵

Amphibious landing operations on Guadalcanal began successfully, with U.S. forces capturing the Japanese airfield without opposition.¹⁶ However, after two days of enemy air attacks, the number of operational U.S. fighter aircraft decreased from ninety-nine to seventy-eight.¹⁷ Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher, commander of Task Force 61, requested permission from Ghormley to withdraw the carriers, citing this factor and expressing concern about the threat from enemy bombers. Fletcher’s withdrawal severed the Marines’ naval support before they finished offloading supplies onto the beach. As the IJN and IJA began to reinforce their positions on Guadalcanal with six thousand troops from the 17th Army, fierce fighting erupted on the island.¹⁸

The key to the Guadalcanal campaign was the ability of either side to bring in reinforcements and supplies.¹⁹ By November, supply challenges at SOPAC headquarters in New Caledonia continued to degrade the situation on Guadalcanal.²⁰ SOPAC committed U.S. Army forces to Guadalcanal on 13 October 1942 when the 164th Infantry Regiment of the Americal Division landed at Lunga Point, but it struggled with similar logistical challenges to those faced by the Marines. Compounding the sustainment problem, the Americal Division served simultaneously as a corps headquarters to the 2nd Marine Division. To alleviate this strain, Lt. Gen. Millard Harmon, U.S. Army Forces SOPAC commanding general, proposed the establishment of a formal corps headquarters. Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. George C. Marshall approved this proposal, leading to the activation of the XIV Corps on 2 January 1943.²¹

Upon activation, Maj. Gen. Alexander Patch, the former Americal Division commander, became the corps commander. He focused on improving the sustainment situation and planning offensive operations with the 2nd Marine Division and the 25th Infantry Division (ID), which arrived on Guadalcanal from 17 December 1942 to 1 January 1943.²² Without corps engineering assets, the XIV Corps used subordinate division enablers to build bridges and create roads to expedite the transportation of supplies.²³ The XIV Corps employed the native population to carry supplies where the jungle limited vehicular mobility. When the distance was too long for a day’s march, the XIV Corps ordered B-17 aircraft to conduct supply drops to the 25th ID.²⁴ As the sustainment situation improved and planning for the first January offensive was completed, the XIV Corps transitioned to seizing key terrain south of Henderson Field and denying the Japanese Mount Austen.

With conditions finally set for the transition to the offense, the XIV Corps apportioned air assets from the Cactus Air Force to enable subordinate divisions’ agile maneuvers. Patch authorized the 25th ID to directly liaison with the 2nd Marine Air Wing to control the air integration in support of the seizure of objectives on Mount Austen south of the American perimeter.²⁵ 25th ID began its attack with the 27th Infantry Regiment attacking a set of hills called the Galloping Horse and 35th Infantry Regiment moving south of 27th Infantry to reduce a Japanese strongpoint defense at the Gifu. During the 27th Infantry’s assault on Galloping Horse on 10 January, the 2nd Marine Air Wing targeted the reverse slopes of Hills 52 and 53 because Americal artillery could not support the regimental assault (see map 2).²⁶ As the 25th ID reduced Japanese resistance on Mount Austen, the XIV Corps began planning a coastal offensive with the support of naval assets.

After defeating the Japanese south of Henderson Field on Mount Austen, Patch requested air and naval bombardments to support divisional agility to encircle and eliminate the Japanese forces to the west of the American perimeter in Kokumbona. The air and sea domains were heavily contested during the early months of fighting on Guadalcanal, but as SOPAC established regional dominance and a multidomain foothold near the island, ground forces were able to capitalize on the integration and convergence of effects.²⁷ At 0200 hrs. on 23 January, the Navy bombarded Kokumbona with 3,500 shells from destroyers and cruisers, and at 0800 hrs., the USS Saratoga launched twenty-four Scout Bomber-Douglas dive bombers, seventeen Grumman torpedo bombers, and eighteen Wildcat fighter aircraft, delivering twenty-three tons of bombs to support the XIV Corps advance.²⁸ Destroyers again played a critical role in supporting the 25th ID’s assault on Hills 105 and 106, overlooking the Poha River, and the Americal’s crossing of the Bonegi River. As the XIV Corps expanded its control westward, it initiated shore-to-shore operations to prevent the Japanese retreat toward Cape Esperance.²⁹ By integrating joint effects, the XIV Corps significantly strengthened its ability to defeat Japanese forces and ultimately break the stalemate on Guadalcanal. Although the XIV Corps’ second January offensive was successful, the Japanese had hidden their intentions to withdraw from the island and preserve combat power for future operations.

The Guadalcanal campaign succeeded due to the close integration of air, land, and maritime assets. SOPAC’s early lodgment prevented Japanese continued expansion. After the airfield seizure, marines and soldiers defended Henderson Field and cleared terrain further inland and along the coast. The Navy secured sea lanes and supplied ground combat on the island. As a result of the fighting on Guadalcanal, SOPAC used Henderson Field to project power and target the supply lines of the counterattacking Japanese troops. With the successful defense of Henderson Field and the defeat of the Japanese garrison, the Allies were ready to begin Operation Cartwheel, MacArthur’s plan to defeat the Japanese at Rabaul.

New Georgia: Seizing the Initiative

The transition to New Georgia marked a significant shift in the Allied Solomon Islands strategy, beginning the reduction of Rabaul. New Georgia’s airfield at Munda Point was the next objective. From Guadalcanal, the Allies gained essential insights into logistics, interservice cooperation, and the necessity of controlling air and sea routes, which played a key role in the planning and execution of the New Georgia invasion. Adm. William Halsey, the newly appointed SOPAC commander, started to plan for New Georgia before the end of the Guadalcanal campaign, which involved extensive reconnaissance and logistical preparations to prevent repeating the early failures of Guadalcanal.³⁰

On 30 June 1943, Allied landings on New Georgia sought to control key maritime access points and seize the strategic airfield at Munda Point on the southwest point of the island. Marines landed at Viru Harbor on the eastern coast of New Georgia, while the Army’s 43rd ID arrived at Rendova to secure a staging area for the assault on Munda Point (see map 3).³¹ The operation soon stalled as the inexperienced 43rd ID struggled to advance through the dense jungle and overcome the determined Japanese resistance.³² On 7 July, SOPAC sent elements of the 37th ID from Guadalcanal to support the 43rd ID, and Maj. Gen. Oscar Griswold, the newly appointed XIV Corps commander, arrived to assess the situation. Alarmed by the tactical conditions, Griswold reported to his superiors that “things are going badly” and recommended immediate reinforcements.³³

Griswold officially assumed command of the New Georgia Occupation Force on 16 July and quickly reorganized the stalled offensive while SOPAC delivered additional combat power. Griswold ordered Maj. Gen. John Hester to reconsolidate the 43rd ID, ensuring it was prepared for the impending Munda offensive. As the XIV Corps planned for a larger offensive, Griswold instructed the 43rd ID to hold their ground and execute focused, limited patrols.³⁴ This order maintained consistent pressure on the Japanese and gradually improved the 43rd ID’s positions in New Georgia as SOPAC gathered resources to bring to the island.

As the 43rd ID reconsolidated north of Rendova, the XIV Corps immediately began a series of initiatives to address other challenges limiting progress on New Georgia.³⁵ Prioritizing the arrival and organization of reinforcements from the 25th and 37th IDs, Griswold focused on developing island sustainment systems. Specific offshore islands were designated as supply dumps for each division, enhancing the efficiency of forwarding equipment and supplies. The XIV Corps requested that SOPAC deploy the 17th Field Hospital from Guadalcanal to help mitigate the high casualty rates and stabilize casualties before the maritime transit to Guadalcanal. The XIV Corps’ actions in New Georgia were crucial in the campaign’s turnaround, focusing on integrating reinforcements and improving island logistics to facilitate the capture of Munda airfield.

During the succeeding offensive, the XIV Corps heavily relied on air and maritime support to seize Munda Point. It integrated naval bombardment and close air support to support subordinate divisions’ maneuvers through dense jungle and the relentless Japanese defense. Before the offensive, the XIV Corps G-3, Col. Eugene Ridings, flew to Koli Point, Guadalcanal, to plan with Harmon and Vice Adm. Theodore Wilkinson, Task Force 31 commander.³⁶ Ridings persuaded SOPAC to provide a thirty-minute naval bombardment and sequential aerial bombing to support a two-division frontal assault on the airfield on 25 July. The XIV Corps’ coordination and synchronization of joint effects denied the Japanese defenders the ability to respond to the attack. With dilemmas for the Japanese from land, sea, and air, the XIV Corps constantly shaped Munda Point, providing opportunities for divisional exploitation. As XIV Corps completed the Munda offensive on 5 August and rapidly restored Munda airfield’s capabilities, Halsey sought to continue operational progress without another lengthy island campaign.

Vella Lavella, immediately northwest of New Georgia and Kolombangara, offered another airfield capable of reaching Bougainville without the time, human, and resource cost of defeating the twenty thousand Japanese soldiers on Kolombangara. On 11 August, Halsey issued orders to invade Vella Lavella under the command of Wilkinson.³⁷ In this order, the XIV Corps would provide two regiments to conduct the landings and move north to Arundel to provide artillery support. The XIV Corps targeted Vila airfield on Kolombangara to prevent the Japanese from launching air sorties, while Air Command Solomons (AirSols) from New Georgia would support the landings. Halsey’s integration of naval bombardment, landing craft, Army artillery, and close air support exemplifies the harmony of effects across all domains. 35th Infantry Regiment’s landings on 15 August enabled the development of an airfield to continue to project land-based airpower deeper into Japanese-controlled territory.

The XIV Corps contributed greatly to the joint effort on New Georgia and was critical to subordinate divisions’ success during the campaign. The insights and early struggles of Guadalcanal profoundly influenced the New Georgia campaign, and New Georgia was a truly joint operation that illustrates the Army’s multidomain role in the joint force.³⁸ Third Fleet and AirSols contributed to the island’s isolation and enabled ground maneuver with air and fire support. The XIV Corps, in turn, seized additional airfields to project airpower and leveraged land-based artillery to shape and support future amphibious landings. With newly claimed airfields, AirSols continued to pressure the IJN and air forces from Rabaul, enabling SOPAC to disrupt Japanese efforts to prepare defenses on Bougainville.³⁹

Bougainville: Extending
Operational Reach

Along the island-hopping campaign northwest to Rabaul, Bougainville was the next opportunity to secure an airfield to isolate Japanese defenses in the southwest Pacific. The decision to land at Empress Augusta Bay on Bougainville’s west coast was influenced by the desire to avoid heavily fortified Japanese positions the island’s southeast coast and exploit a weaker point in the enemy’s defenses.⁴⁰ This approach, based on the success of similar bypass maneuvers in earlier campaigns, aimed to minimize casualties and rapidly seize key objectives to support the continued air campaign. With a final island campaign, the Allies could complete the reduction of Rabaul and conclude operations in the Solomon Islands.

On 1 November 1943, the 3rd Marine Division landed at Empress Augusta Bay on Bougainville, facing limited resistance as anticipated. The Marines quickly secured their objectives and established an airfield on a narrow strip of land along the shore. The Japanese attempted to counterattack from Rabaul by air and sea. However, the 5th Air Force from New Guinea and Task Force 39, supported by AirSols, protected the landings and early beachhead.⁴¹ The Japanese began reinforcing Bougainville on 6 November, and the Allies landed the 37th ID over the next two weeks.⁴² On 15 December, the XIV Corps relieved the I Marine Amphibious Corps, freeing the Marines for additional landings to complete the isolation of Rabaul from islands north of the fortification. On Bougainville, both sides were preparing for a climactic confrontation, and the Japanese were running out of time due to ongoing SWPA and SOPAC successes.

Upon arrival, the XIV Corps immediately began improving Bougainville’s logistical and tactical situation. Again, the XIV Corps organized and developed the island’s sustainment infrastructure. Griswold described the problem: “Puruata Island was so heavily loaded down it was about to sink … space for all these things had to be carved out of the virgin jungle.”⁴³ To support the XIV Corps with the sustainment problem, Halsey activated a provisional service command for Bougainville that began operations on 6 January 1944.⁴⁴ The XIV Corps organized a road network to sustain divisions building their defensive positions and oversaw the completion of the airfield expansion. Tactically, the XIV Corps did not experience significant combat for the first two months on Bougainville, but Griswold ordered combat and reconnaissance patrols north and east of the beachhead to maintain contact with the Japanese 17th Army.

Early in the occupation of Bougainville, Allied code breakers captured information that indicated a planned Japanese counteroffensive to dislodge the Allies from the beach and deny the Allies an airfield on Bougainville.⁴⁵ Although the XIV Corps lacked sufficient forces to hold all the high ground inland, Griswold maintained constant patrols leveraging aircraft, PT boats, and a Fijian infantry regiment to exercise the perimeter.⁴⁶ The combined joint operations monitored the Japanese disposition on the island and was crucial in denying the Japanese tactical initiative. As the XIV Corps improved the situation surrounding Piva airfield, AirSols intensified its power projection, contributing to the air and sea campaign on Rabaul.

With the successful landing at Bougainville and the establishment of Piva airfield, AirSols almost immediately began air operations to neutralize Rabaul. Still, theater operations depended on completing bomber strips by the Piva River. On 30 December 1943 and 9 January 1944, two bomber airstrips were completed, and B-24s and B-25s were permanently stationed on Bougainville.⁴⁷ During the first two weeks of February, Japanese defenses on Rabaul grew weaker due to continued air attacks, and they could not launch air sorties from Rabaul after 19 February.⁴⁸ With the Allies completing Rabaul’s isolation, the Japanese needed to prevent air operations from Bougainville. Therefore, the planned counteroffensive became imminent (see map 4).⁴⁹

The Japanese Bougainville counteroffensive and Allied defense comprised months of planning and build-up. The XIV Corps had grown after assuming command of Bougainville, and by March, it consisted of sixty-two thousand service members defending its perimeter.⁵⁰ The Japanese assembled a counterattack force of 15,400 men of the 17th Army.⁵¹ However, due to the significant preparation time, the XIV Corps had built extensive, mutually supporting defensive positions with planned and integrated fire support from land, sea, and air. On 8 March, the Japanese offensive began with a bombardment of the beachhead and Piva airstrips. Army artillery and destroyers in Empress Augusta Bay quickly responded, aided by forward observers and spotter planes, and XIV Corps artillery used smoke missions to guide Scout Bomber-Douglas and Torpedo Bomber Grumman aircraft onto Japanese columns.⁵² Despite intense fighting over two weeks, mostly at night, the Japanese counteroffensive failed and was officially over on 23 March. For months after major combat operations ended, American troops patrolled Bougainville’s jungles, hunting remnants of the Japanese 17th Army. As the SWPA headquarters and the XIV Corps prepared for operations in the Philippines, the command of island operations passed from the XIV Corps to the Australian Army in November 1944.

Conclusion

The success of the XIV Corps as a land component command in the Solomon Islands resulted from two years dedicated to resourcing, apportioning, and integrating joint capabilities from air, land, and sea. The shaping efforts of the XIV Corps and the resulting convergence of effects altered the tactical situation and improved its divisions’ agility and endurance against a tenacious enemy. Because of the corps’ repeated success, SOPAC relied on the XIV Corps to dominate the land domain, while Halsey and Harmon focused on strategically weakening the Japanese. The mutual supporting nature among AirSols, Third Fleet, and Marine and Army ground forces is a compelling example of joint integration with the Army’s multidomain operating concept.

Throughout the three island campaigns, the XIV Corps immediately improved sustainment systems, empowering divisions to concentrate on ground combat. The XIV Corps employed essential enablers to build vital roads and bridges, established crucial supply depots, and enhanced subordinate divisions’ endurance and operational reach. With the development of island sustainment infrastructure, the XIV Corps planned and integrated joint effects, effectively breaking the recurring stalemates that had gripped the Japanese and American divisions. This proactive approach is an exceptional example of land component commands’ responsibilities to resource operations to meet challenging conditions and significantly tilted the balance toward victory.

From its infancy, the XIV Corps, Cactus Air Force, and AirSols developed a close air support relationship that was critical to the success of the Solomon Islands campaign. Marine landings, Navy construction battalions, and Army infantry divisions worked harmoniously to gain access, defend, and develop airfields to continue the theater air campaign. In return, AirSols was critical to the ground defense of the airfields and the isolation of Japanese island resistance. Allied bombing had a profound impact on the South Pacific, with estimates suggesting ten thousand servicemen were killed at Japanese airbases.⁵³ This number fails to include the air campaign’s success against the IJA on battlefields across the region and the immense toll on the IJN. As land-based aircraft continued to expand the operational reach of SOPAC forces, the Navy gained freedom of action to defeat the IJN.

Resonant with contemporary security issues, sea power was crucial in World War II because it bridged faraway places where states waged war. Adm. Herbert Richmond remarked, “Sea power didn’t win the war; it enabled victory by controlling the seas and denying it to the enemy.”⁵⁴ His quote highlights that command of the sea depended on the collaboration of land, sea, and air forces, ensuring a secure pathway for Allied forces to defeat the enemy. The integration of Navy with Marine and Army ground forces grew significantly during this campaign, and the effects of a noncontiguous maritime environment severely challenged the Army. However, the planning and integration of the XIV Corps and Third Fleet were crucial in the island environment. Without the multidomain approach, Army divisions would not have overcome the Japanese resistance.

Using the XIV Corps history in the Solomon Islands, today’s corps echelon is equally critical in integrating multidomain effects in LSCO. The need is particularly evident in the face of evolving challenges in the Pacific. FM 3-0’s publication and unprecedented focus on maritime warfare make the Pacific island-hopping campaign worthy of renewed study, and this campaign uniquely illustrates how corps and divisions can integrate air, ground, and maritime effects. These lessons allow the framing of multidomain operation discussions to counter the heightened risks of A2/AD threats, contested logistics, and the increased threat to U.S. influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Given this reality, the role of the XIV Corps in the Pacific War as an equivalent land component command will remain an instructive example of how senior Army commands can lead joint operations to enable U.S. and coalition success in challenging maritime theaters.

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Notes

1. Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations (U.S. Government Publishing Office [GPO], 2025), 33–35; The FM cites notional Russian and Chinese preclusion antiaccess/area denial bubbles directly in figures 2-1 and 2-2.
2. Walt A. Reed and Justin T. DeLeon, “The Agile U.S. Army Division in a Multidomain Environment,” Military Review 104, no. 5 (September-October 2024): 46; FM 3-0, Operations, 44.
3. Army Doctrine Publication 3-0, Operations (U.S. GPO, 2025), 27.
4. Reed and DeLeon, “The Agile U.S. Army Division,” 43.
5. Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations (U.S. GPO, 2022), III-6.
6. FM 3-94, Armies, Corps, and Division Operations (U.S. GPO, 2021), 4-21.
7. Louis Morton, Strategy and Command: The First Two Years, U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH) Pub. 5-1 (U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2000), 436–37.
8. Christopher M. Rein, Multi-Domain Battle in the Southwest Pacific Theater of World War II (Army University Press, 2018), 15.
9. Courtney Whitney, MacArthur: His Rendezvous with History (Knopf, 1956), 10–11.
10. Whitney, MacArthur, 47–50.
11. Morton, Strategy and Command, 291.
12. Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (Free Press, 1985), 155.
13. Evan Mawdsley, The War for the Seas: A Maritime History of World War II (Yale University Press, 2019), 215.
14. John Miller Jr., Guadalcanal: The First Offensive, CMH 5-3 (U.S. Army CMH, 1995), 1.
15. Miller, Guadalcanal, 67–71.
16. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun, 190–91.
17. Miller, Guadalcanal, 79.
18. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun, 196.
19. Mawdsley, The War for the Seas, 232.
20. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun, 207–8.
21. Miller, Guadalcanal, 217–19.
22. Rein, Multi-Domain Battle in the Southwest Pacific Theater, 50.
23. Herbert Christian Merillat, Guadalcanal Remembered (Dodd, Mead, 1982), 264.
24. Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle (Penguin, 1992), 552.
25. Miller, Guadalcanal, 360.
26. Frank, Guadalcanal, 554; map from Charles R. Anderson, Guadalcanal, CMH Pub. 72-8 (U.S. Army CMH, 1995), 14–15.
27. Rein, Multi-Domain Battle in the Southwest Pacific, 38.
28. Frank, Guadalcanal, 573.
29. Merillat, Guadalcanal Remembered, 268.
30. John Miller Jr., Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul (U.S. Army Office of the Chief of Military History, 1959), 73.
31. Morton, Strategy and Command, 506.
32. Morton, Strategy and Command, 507.
33. Morton, Strategy and Command, 511.
34. Eric M. Hammel, Munda Trail the New Georgia Campaign, 1st ed. (Orion Books, 1989), 140.
35. Hammel, Munda Trail, 151–53.
36. Miller, Cartwheel, 143.
37. Miller, Cartwheel, 175.
38. Miller, Cartwheel, 187.
39. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun, 243–44.
40. Miller, Cartwheel, 227.
41. Morton, Strategy and Command, 576.
42. Harry A. Gailey, Bougainville, 1943-1945: The Forgotten Campaign (University Press of Kentucky, 1991), 93–95.
43. Miller, Cartwheel, 267–68.
44. Miller, Cartwheel, 268.
45. Stephen J. Lofgren, Northern Solomons, CMH Pub. 72-10 (U.S. Army CMH, 1993), 27.
46. Gailey, Bougainville, 136–37.
47. Gailey, Bougainville, 130; Miller, Cartwheel, 309.
48. Gailey, Bougainville, 142–44.
49. Lofgren, Northern Solomons, 28.
50. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun, 283.
51. Miller, Cartwheel, 351.
52. Gailey, Bougainville, 149–50.
53. Eric M. Bergerud, Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific (Westview, 2001), 671.
54. Mawdsley, The War for the Seas, 477–78.

 

 

 

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