The IJN was the most gospel believers in the A.T. Mahan doctrine of the decisive fleet action, more so than Mahan's own USN. To them, it was a warrior vs. warrior fight only, not a fight over logistics and key points. Look later in the war at the Battle off Samar, when Kurita decided NOT to go trash the supply fleet in Leyte, but rather withdraw having battered USN combatants instead. To fight warriors was honorable, to fight "civilians" was beneath them.

Prior to Guadalcanal (known to the Japanese as Starvation Island), the Japanese Army and US Marines had not faced each other and survived to report it (e.g. a lopsided victory). Almost immediately after landing, the IJN drove the USN from the waters around the islands, making resupply of the US forces ashore as difficult as for the Japanese. The IJN owned the night, and US NAVAIR owned the day. Neither side could deliver a knockout punch, either ashore or in the water. (A good read on the Naval Campaign at Guadalcanal is Neptune's Inferno). The USMC took and kept the airfield, and that's all that was needed/supportable with the resources available to the US at that time. Once the USN wrested control of the sea lanes around Guadalcanal, supplies and troops were landed in sufficient force to secure the island.

Japan could have, perhaps, fought longer. But the game was up at Guadalcanal one way or another. Japan's story of the war runs up to the fall of Starvation Island, and then the narrative basically ends with the (much longer in time but much shorter story) collapse of the IJN back to home waters and the end of the war.

Both navies fought themselves to exhaustion by the middle of the Guadalcanal campaign. The difference is, that after Guadalcanal ended, by early 43 the US was building fully equipped carrier battle groups every few months (by 44 this was about every 90 days, and by 45 it was almost one a months - note that some of the escort carriers went from keel laying to commission in just over 100 days). Japan never had a chance once it became a war of attrition. Once the Americans held the airfield on Guadalcanal, and held off the initial push to retake it at the Tenaru River, the war was, effectively, decided. This is *only* visible in hindsight. There is NO way anybody could have known at the time, or even for the bloody years to come.


Ian Toll's excellent trilogy, Pacific Crucible, The Conquering Tide, and (to be published next year, Twilight of the Gods) is a great coverage of the overall Pacific War from the US view

John Toland's book The Rising Sun is a great coverage of the war from the Japanese view

James Hornfisher's books, Neptune's Inferno and Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors are excellent for more specific details of the Naval campaign for Guadalcanal, and the Battle off Samar.

Tully & Parshall's book "Shattered Sword" is an excellent detailed read on the true luck and disaster of Midway - and why it really cut the war very short for Japan.

Additional reading from outside the PTO is Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer winning trilogy: An Army at Dawn, The Day of Battle, and The Guns at Last Light about the US Army campaigns in Europe.

As always, Stephen Ambroses' books D-Day and Citizen Soldiers are good details on specific aspects of the war D-Day to VE-Day in the ETO.