American Military History, Volume 2 by Richard W. Stewart

Meanwhile, in the spring and summer of 1943, a strategy for the defeat of Japan began to take shape within Allied councils. The major Allied objective was control of the South China Sea and a foothold on the coast of China to sever Japanese lines of communications southward and to establish bases from which to subject Japan first to an intensive aerial bombardment and naval blockade and then, if necessary, an in- vasion. The first plans for this objective envisioned Allied drives from several different directions: by American forces across the Pacific (from the south and southwest toward the Philippines and from Hawaii across the Central Pacific) and by British and Chinese forces along a land line through Burma and China and a sea line from India via the Nether- lands Indies, Singapore, and the Strait of Malacca into the South China Sea. Within the framework of this tentative long-range plan, the U.S. Joint Chiefs fitted their existing plans for completion of the campaign against Rabaul and a subsequent advance to the Philippines and devel- oped a plan for the second drive across the Central Pacific. In 1942 and 1943 they also pressed the Chinese and British to get a drive under way in Burma to reopen the supply line to China in phase with their Pacific advances, offering extensive air and logistical support.

Kiska Raid, Edward Laning, 1943