Expansion - the Japanese Conquest of the Pacific Timeline

The Empire of Japan knew it had to act fast and in some numbers to complete the sphere of influence its leaders envisioned throughout the Pacific and in Southeast Asia. This meant a rapid and mobile military force with calculating and resource-minded objectives that would help keep the military machine humming along like a well-oiled machine.

Carrier warfare was nothing new to the world though its scope and success was put on center stage with the arrival of World War 2. The surprise attack by the Japanese Navy of Pearl Harbor reaped some limited results - Pearl activity was disrupted for the interim and the quick-strike capability and inherent mobility of carrier-borne aircraft was proven several times over. The greatest flaw in the assault was the American carriers being out of the region at the time of the attack, perhaps saving the all-important American foothold in the Pacific itself.

On a similar note, the British Royal Navy - now charged with policing the waters making up the Indian Ocean and elsewhere - were at the mercy of the powerful air arm of the Imperial Japanese Navy. With a limited set of warships in the theater, the Royal Navy did what they could against the calculated assaults of the Empire only to be handed a similar deciding defeat in turn.

With the United States Navy regrouping and the British Royal Navy reeling, Japan now moved on the islands that made up former European colonies, and this progressed with some - completing amphibious assault after amphibious assault until the Allies (and like-forces) either retreated, surrendered or were destroyed. At any rate, carrier warfare was here to stay and, in a few more years, would supplant the mighty battleships that had ruled the seas for decades before.

The Japanese reach was a grand one by the end of 1942 and its power would be felt for months later until the Allies were ready to mobilize their offensives to take back the captured islands - one at a time if need-be.

At its greatest stretch, Japanese expansion had engulfed tiny Wake Island, the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, parts of New Guinea, the Caroline Islands, the Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands, the Marianas Islands and some of the Solomon Island chain.

If the Allies were going to act, it would have to be sooner rather than later.