Operation Hawaii: Yamamoto planned to neutralize and sink the US fleet in Hawaiian waters, this would give Japan time to consolidate its empire. The war would begin with a major blow against the American Pacific Fleet. The Americans were unaware of the plan and see the Japanese as inferior to them and unfit as soldiers and airmen. On November 26, 1941, at 6:00 am, the task force sailed for Pearl Harbor, remaining undetected. There was no sun, no moon, no stars, so the weather was in their favor until the morning they launched their attack, making navigation difficult. On December 2, they received the message authorizing them to attack their prey. At that point the Japanese government was convinced that war was necessary. On December 7, they reached the launch position. At 5:30 Nagumo launched two reconnaissance planes. One to fly over the pearl itself and the other to fly over the Lahaina anchorage. The Americans actually followed the planes but assumed they were friendly. Shortly before 6 a.m., Nagumo turned his carriers into the wind and began launching the first wave. Then he fired a second wave. Nagumo now had 351 planes to expend towards Pearl, about 90 minutes south. The submarines and other vessels had arrived in Hawaiian waters a few days earlier. At 6:45 am the destroyer Ward had opened fire on the Japanese midgets. The Solomon Islands and Guadalcanal For the next year, the United States engaged Japan in a protracted struggle for the Solomon Islands, which lay near vital Allied shipping lanes. Between August 1942 and February 1943, Allied forces carried out an invasion of the island of Guadalcanal, the beginning of a long series of Allied offensives that would eventually force the Japanese out of the Solomons. .....they were proud American citizens. Therefore, it was psychologically and politically important. The Marianas were essential to the maintenance of the Japanese Empire for the same strategic military reasons that the Americans wanted them. The Japanese began Operation A: they attempted to strike a blow at the US Navy, but the battle came sooner than expected due to the arrival of the American task force off the island of Saipan. On 11 June 1944, Mitcher's fast carrier task force had begun neutralizing the island's defenses. The Japanese garrison numbered 30,000 men, or two full divisions. Saito contested the island's waterline, as the Second and Fourth Divisions discovered when they landed. The resistance was more than they expected. Nagumo lived long enough to see ships sink thanks to the work of his aviators at Pearl Harbor.