Your post, MM, to which i responded, and which response you didn't manage to read, claimed that we did not enjoy any victories in the Pacific until Guadalcanal was taken in 1943, more than a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor. That is why i find it hilarious for you to criticize anyone else for their knowledge of history.
The Southern Operation, which the Japanese launched as Nagumo's First Air Fleet was returning from Hawaii, was to overrun all of the Allied possessions in the East Indies, including the Philippine Islands. The plan budgeted five weeks for the defeat of the American and Filipino forces in the Philippines. It took them five months. Although a horrible defeat for the Americans and Filipino forces, followed by real atrocities committed against the prisoners, it constituted a strategic victory, because it helped to throw the entire schedule of the Southern Operation out of kilter. The forces in the Philippines were to have joined the attack on Malaysia and Singapore. In the event, the Japanese were only slightly delayed, because the English commander at Singapore, Percival the Rabbit, surrendered to the Japanese when they were in no position to launch a successful assault on the city. They would have likely been overrun anyway, but they might have held out far longer. Nevertheless, thanks to the dogged defense of the Philippines, all the parts of the Southern Operation were delayed.
That included a landing on the north coast of New Guinea, followed by a march over the mountains to take Port Moresby, from which an invasion of Australia, or at least an attack on Port Darwin, could be launched. The Japanese had been bogged down trying to cross the high mountain range to the south coast (Port Moresby is on the south-east coast), and both the Japanese, and the Australian-American defenders, suffered horribly, but the defenders held.
So the Japanese decided to make a landing to take Port Moresby, and sent a task force to accomplish that end, which included an escort carrier. The United States Navy sent a task force to oppose them. So, in May, 1942, the Japanese gained a tactical victory, because they sank the carrier Lexington, while they only lost their small escort carrier. It was, however, a strategic victory for the Allies, because the Japanese task force, now lacking air cover, turned back without attacking Port Moresby.
But most incredible to me is that you appear never to have heard of the battle of Midway. This was the turning point in the naval war, and it took place in June, 1942, just six months after the attack on Hawaii. When the First Air Fleet attacked Pearl Harbor, it contained the six largest carriers in the Imperial Navy: Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu, Shokaku and Zuikaku. At Midway, the United States Navy got its revenge in spades. This time, the Japanese had those six fleet carriers, and three small escort carriers. Although we lost the carrier Yorktown, we sank Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu and Soryu. The three escort carriers only had the capacity to launch fighters for combat air patrol, and were dangerously vulnerable to air or surface attack. Yamamoto was obliged to call off the operation to take Midway Island, and the Imperial Fleet was left with only two fleet carriers--they were never again able to challenge the United States Navy in an air battle in mid-ocean. It was truly the turning point of the naval war in the Pacific.
Yet you are willing to sneer at someone else for a lack of historical knowledge.
The final basis upon which your feeble analogy fails is that you compared the Iraq War to the Pacific War, and attempted to suggest that since in the Pacific it took us more than a year to achieve a victory (which is false), no one should expect that we would have succeeded yet in Iraq. But it has been more than four years since we invaded Iraq. Four years after the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, the war in the Pacific had been over for three months.
You really have a gall to criticize anyone else's knowledge of history after that performance.
