U.S. troops were forced to surrender in the Philippines in
early 1942, but the Americans rallied in the following months.
General James "Jimmy" Doolittle led U.S. Army bombers on a raid
over Tokyo in April; it had little actual military significance,
but gave Americans an immense psychological boost.
In May, at the Battle of the Coral Sea – the first naval
engagement in history in which all the fighting was done by
carrier-based planes – a Japanese naval invasion fleet sent to
strike at southern New Guinea and Australia was turned back by a
U.S. task force in a close battle. A few weeks later, the naval
Battle of Midway in the central Pacific resulted in the first
major defeat of the Japanese Navy, which lost four aircraft
carriers. Ending the Japanese advance across the central
Pacific, Midway was the turning point.
Other battles also contributed to Allied success. The six-month
land and sea battle for the island of Guadalcanal (August
1942-February 1943) was the first major U.S. ground victory in
the Pacific. For most of the next two years, American and
Australian troops fought their way northward from the South
Pacific and westward from the Central Pacific, capturing the
Solomons, the Gilberts, the Marshalls, and the Marianas in a
series of amphibious assaults.
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