Status Updates From The Pacific Campaign: The S...

Thus the Americans took 38 months to undo what it had taken the Japanese only 180 days to do by way of conquest.

An Allied advance through New Guinea, the Philippines & Formosa, the Navy argued in 1943, would be exposed to constant attack on its right flank [from various island chains within range of long distance bombers].

Both services couldn't agree on 1 line of attack, but they could afford two. Methodically.

"The Japanese war machine, checked and forced to change its plans for the first time at the Coral Sea and decisively repelled at Midway, was now forced to go into reverse by its failure on Guadalcanal and simultaneously in Papua. From now on it was the United States and its allies who were strategically on the offensive, in the air, on the ground, and at sea."

What Lends the outcome of the fight for the Coral Sea such great interest psychologically is that such light losses for such an apparently aggressive belligerent as the Imperial Japanese Navy caused it to recoil to sharply. Indeed, in most people's terms it had won: one small carrier lost, compared to one heavy U.S. flattop and one damaged out of four avaliable in the Pacific... But the southward advance was halted.

April '42: The defensive perimeter could reasonably be extended by adding the western Aleutians & Midway to the chain of occupied islands; if this brought the US fleet out, the Combined Fleet would be happy to oblige.
Finally there was Port Moresby in (Australian) eastern New Guinea, defended by just 1 Army brigade. From there, Australia's coasts could be attacked by land-based bombers as often as necessary.

"having made their hero, they were stuck with him" [MacArthur]

The overall Nimitz-MacArthur job divide in the Pacific also satisfied the political need to control Army-Navy service rivalry, or so Van Der Vat claims ?

"ABDA proved much better at producing acronyms than scoring points off the rampaging Japanese"

"Whereas Nimitz could have done King's job, King could not have done Nimitz's so well" [by temperament]

"it was as if their leaders, including Yamamoto, who was as least as responsible for the imminent attempt by the Japanese to overreach themselves, did not exist unless they were on the attack: I strike, therefore I am"

A bitter dispute developed whether the planned third assault should go in. Yamamoto backed the veto. Thus were the fuel tanks and other vital shoreside facilities of Pearl Harbor saved from all but incidental damage. They were to have been the prime target of wave number three. Their destruction would have rendered the base useless & forced the US Navy back to the West coast, over 2.000 miles to the East.