Japan Thought the Pacific Was Too Big for America to Supply — Then the Floating Bases Arrived

Japan thought the Pacific was too big to cross. For 20 years its entire war plan rested on that — 3,000 miles of open ocean and 2,000 mandate islands lying across every route, with the fortified anchorage at Truk sitting at the centre of it. On 17 February 1944 American carriers arrived over the lagoon, and in 2 days they erased roughly 40 ships and 250 aircraft. The Combined Fleet never anchored there again.

This documentary reconstructs Operation Hailstone from the record: the 1920 South Seas Mandate that handed Japan the central Pacific, the secret fortification of Truk, the Japanese doctrine of interceptive attrition, the commissioning of Service Squadron Ten in November 1943 — a complete naval base made of ships, including floating dry docks towed across an ocean in sections — the lessons of Tarawa, Koga's withdrawal of the heavy units to Palau, the 72-aircraft fighter sweep at 04:50, the first radar-directed night carrier attack in history, and the 38,000-man garrison left to starve for 18 months.

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