By mid-January, MacArthur had more than 30,000 Australian and American troops committed to overrunning 12,000 Japanese in the “Buna Pocket.” At the end of the month, just before Guadalcanal was finally secured, the last surviving Japanese defender was killed or captured—at a cost of more than 3,000 Allied lives—nearly double the U.S. losses to take Guadalcanal. In Washington, the Joint Chiefs seized on the moment to establish priorities for the next offensive steps against Japan. Recognizing that the European theater was still the main war effort, they nonetheless developed what they called the “Strategic Plan for the Defeat of Japan.” It called for:• Cutting the flow of oil and resources to Japan with intensive submarine attacks • Sustained aerial bombing of Japanese-held territory• Retaking the Aleutian islands seized by Japan• A central pacific attack from Hawaii west toward the Home Islands• A two-pronged attack north from New Guinea and the Solomons to capture Rabaul.
