To:
His Most Imperial Majesty
Re:
First Quarterly Report on the War in the Pacific
In accordance with Your Highness's instructions, the Imperial General Staff submits this overview report on the progress of the War in its first 90 days.
India-South East Asian Theater:
We are pleased to report that the Army has made great progress on this theater. Rangoon has been overrun and Mandalay is presently under seige by Imperial Forces. Akyab has been taken by the Japanese forces moving along the Burmese coastline.
The entire Malaysian state has been overrun and the seige of Singapore is well under way. Our plans for this theater have progressed as envisioned.
ABDA Theater:
We have seized a great deal of Sumatra. There are a few pockets of resistence along the northern coastline. We anticipate that these pockets will fall once Singapore has been taken. The coastal town of Sabang was seized early on as planned and remains in our possession. Palembang fell within the first few days of opening of hostilities and towns to the eats and west were cleared of all enenmy resistence within a short period of time thereafter.
Java presented its own problems, poor coordination between the Army and Navy lead to near-fatal failure of our initial invasion plans. Dutch air and naval forces initially put up tremendous resistence, but have been largely subdued at this point. The English's "Z" Force was not to be found in Singapore by our air force and created initial havoc in our landing areas of Kragan and Medan. Fortunately, we have since recovered and have regained the initiative in Java.
Boreno is now nearly cleared of all Dutch/English resistence. Resources and oil flow rather freely at this point.
Timor, Kendari and Ambonia fell rather easily. Now with the infusion of substantial reinforcements, we have establish a rather solid defensive position in that area.
Philippines Theater:
Our intial plan of a strategic seige of these islands was sound. With the destruction of the American's Asiatic Fleet in Manila, we were able to land forces on Jolo Island and establish initial air superiority in the region. This was supplemented by the capture of the large island of Mindano shortly after the fall of Jolo Island.
However, air forces from China and ultimately the ABDA area created a situation where land forces needed to be employed earlier than anticipated. At present the allied air forces on the island of Luzon have acquitted themselves quite well, but their days are numbered as additional forces are employed to squeeze the Bataan-Clark Field-Manila triangle.
China Theater:
By far, this has been the most successful of the campaigns to date. We have captured Yenen, China and effectively sealed-off Northern China. We are presently looking to further exploit this success into Central China.
Our air campaign against the Chinese ability to wage war is moving the the proper direction/ The fall of Burma should greatly assist in this effort.
Australia/South Pacific Theater:
All of our plans concerning this area have been successful. We have captured all major bases in the area. This would include Noumea, Rabual, Canton, Pago Pago, Gili Gili, Buna, Lea, Shortlands, Lunga and all the smaller islands therein. The Fiji Islands have presented stiff resistence but the Imperial General Staff is confident that this resistence will be overcome in short order.
The Austrialian Navy, after an initial venture into the Noumea area has appeared to have retreated to the safety of their coastline. They appear to present no immediate threat to Noumea nor our "mop-up" operations in and around Rabual.
We anticipate this theater to settle into an exchange of air raids from Lea and Port Morseby and in the future, Rabual.
Eastern Pacific:
This theater presents the most interesting options to date. The Imperial Navy, supporting the Imperial Army, have seized all anticipated targets in our goal of the greatest prize in the area - Pearl Harbor. The Americans, to their credit, have fought hard to keep us out of the Hawaiian Islands.
However, with the loss of two [2] of their main carriers in the "Midway Ambush" and the crippling of the
USS Saratoga shortly thereafter, they only have one fully effective carrier in this part of the Pacific - the
USS Yorktown. She is presently being hunted by our Navy and Air Forces. The American appear to be determined to hold Pearl Harbor and have concentrated their meger naval and air forces in and around these islands.
At present we hold, Midway Island, Johnston Island, Palmyra Island, Wake Island and Christmas Island. Any movement out of Pearl Harbor can be seen and countered by our Naval Air and Surface Forces presently in the area. Offensive operations for the AMericans, under their presentl circumstance may be problematic.
General Overview:
We have sustained higher than anticipated air losses and a review of our tactics is presently underway. We have not suffered the carrier losses that the American have to date [we have lost no carriers and yet have operated openly and actively since the opening fo the war]. Essentially, we still have the dominate carrier fleet in the Pacific.
In the next 90 to 180 days, the Imperial General Staff anticipated the submission of the Dutch East Indies and the Philippine Islands. We also anticipate the occupation of Burma and Singapore - our follow-up plans will then be finalized.
Further offensive operations in China may well be moved-up given the success of the Yenen campaign.
The Imperial General Staff is presently looking at options concerning the American Navy in and around the Hawaiian Islands.
With this report, I take my leave to Osaka.
Your Humble and Obedient Servant,
Yamamoto
