The Island Road

CHAPTER 11 · AUG 1942–OCT 1944 · The War Room — WW2, 1936–1945

How do you take back an ocean? Not island by island — that way lies bleeding to death on a thousand beaches. The Allied answer is leapfrogging: seize only the islands needed for airfields and anchorages, and let the bypassed fortresses — like the great base at Rabaul, with its 100,000-man garrison — “wither on the vine,” cut off from food, fuel and relevance.

The turn: Guadalcanal, August 1942–February 1943.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.