LEAPFROGGING
Leapfrogging was a military strategy employed by the Allies in the Pacific War against the Axis powers (most notably Japan) during World War II. It entailed bypassing and isolating heavily fortified Japanese positions while preparing to take over strategically important islands. Leapfrogging originated from island hopping - a strategy, with which leapfrogging is sometimes misleadingly confused. Island hopping entailed taking over an island and establishing a military base there. The base was in turn used as a launching point for the attack and takeover of another island. The result of island hopping was a chain of established bases while the result of leapfrogging was subduing certain strategically important islands while destroying military bases on other islands and thus isolating them in the process. Each of the strategies had its advantaged and was employed in the Pacific War.
BACKGROUND
On December 7, 1941, after failing to resolve a dispute with the United States over Japan's actions in China and French Indochina, the Japanese attacked the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack crippled most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's battleships and started a formal state of war between the two nations. Attacks on British Empire possessions in the Pacific, beginning with an attack on Hong Kong almost simultaneous with the Pearl Harbor attack, brought the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand into the conflict. In launching this war, Japanese leaders sought to neutralize the U.S. fleet, seize possessions rich in natural resources, and obtain strategic military bases to defend their far-flung empire.
The Pacific Ocean Theater officially came into existence on March 30, 1942, when US Admiral Chester Nimitz was appointed Supreme Allied Commander Pacific Ocean Areas. In the other major theater in the Pacific region, known as the South West Pacific theater, Allied forces were commanded by US General Douglas MacArthur. Both Nimitz and MacArthur, overseen by the US Joint Chiefs and the western Allies Combined Chiefs of Staff, applied leapfrogging and island hopping as major strategies. Forces led by Admiral Chester Nimitz, with a smaller land force and larger fleet, would advance north towards the island and capture the Gilbert and Marshall Islands and the Marianas, going generally in the direction of the Bonin Islands. The southern prong, led by General MacArthur and with larger land forces, would take the Solomons, New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, advancing toward the Philippines.
RATIONALE AND USE
Leapfrogging was based on both seaborne and air attacks to blockade and isolate Japanese bases, weakening their garrisons and reducing the Japanese ability to resupply and reinforce them. Thus, troops on islands which had been bypassed, such as the major base at Rabaul, were useless to the Japanese war effort and left to "wither on the vine." MacArthur greatly supported this strategy in his effort to regain the Philippines. It began to be implemented in late 1943 in Operation Cartwheel. While MacArthur claimed to have invented the strategy, it initially came out of the Navy.
Leapfrogging had a number of advantages. It would allow the United States forces to reach Japan more quickly and not expend the time, manpower, and supplies to capture every Japanese-held island on the way. It would also give the Allies the advantage of surprise and keep the Japanese off balance.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (middle), General MacArthur (left), and Admiral Nimitz (right) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, July 26, 1944, National Archives and Records Administration.
US Admiral Chester Nimitz was appointed Supreme Allied Commander Pacific Ocean Areas. In the other major theater in the Pacific region, known as the South West Pacific theater, Allied forces were commanded by US General Douglas MacArthur.