Key Point: After six months, Tokyo would suffer great losses at Midway. However, before that happened the situation looked grim for the Allies.

Both sides needed reinforcements. For the Japanese and the Americans in October 1942, the battle for Guadalcanal was turning into a bottomless pit, demanding more and more scarce resources—in the air and at sea and, most importantly, on the ground. Control of the malarial, jungle-clad island and its airfield might determine the fate of the war in the Pacific.

At the Start of World War II Imperial Japan Was on a Roll