Invasion Australia: Japanese Plans By late mid-1942, the Japanese had seized Singapore, the Netherlands East Indies and Burma. With that, their high command reevaluated their strategy. While the initial objective had been to conquer the “Southern Resource Area,” with that accomplished a possible new goal emerged—the invasion of Australia. Here is our analysis of the factors that led them to forego that attempt.

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• The Colmar Pocket The Allied drive across France during the late summer of 1944 came to a stop due to logistical difficulties and stiffening German resistance. In the south, a German bridgehead 40 miles wide and 30 miles deep on the west bank of the Rhine near Colmar, France, was formed in November. It was not eliminated until after much heavy fighting in February 1945.
• Santa Cruz: Japan’s Final Lunge in the Solomons Despite having been a clash of great consequence, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands did not last long. It started and ended on 26 October 1942, as an epic confrontation that turned out to be Japan’s last effort to regain the initiative in the Solomons. US Adm. William “Bull” Halsey was his typical aggressive and risk-taking self as he attacked a numerically superior enemy task force to carry the day.
• Velikiye Luki: Little Stalingrad of the North From the start of the Germans’ invasion of the Soviet Union, they identified the town of Velikiye Luki as logistically vital to their offensive across that portion of the front. The town’s status as a rail hub also figured prominently in the Soviet counteroffensive there late in 1942. That fighting turned into a wintery bloodbath for both sides that came to be referred to as the “Little Stalingrad of the north.”