The Pacific Campaign — Map

By mid-1942 the Japanese perimeter ran from the Aleutians through the Gilberts and the Solomons to the doorstep of Australia. The road back went two ways. In the southwest, MacArthur's forces started at Guadalcanal in August 1942 and worked up the Solomons and the coast of New Guinea toward the Philippines — Leyte in October 1944, Luzon in January 1945.

In the central Pacific, Nimitz's fleet and Marines jumped from atoll to atoll: Tarawa in November 1943, Kwajalein and Eniwetok, Saipan and Guam, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa in April 1945. Each island became the airfield for the next.

The two lines converge on Japan. The last two arrows, Olympic and Coronet, are dashed: the invasions of Kyushu and Honshu were planned for November 1945 and March 1946 and never happened. The piece is drawn as a period-style campaign map.

Ocean covers most of the sheet, a pale washed blue with the island groups scattered across it in parchment. Two blue arrows start together at Guadalcanal, bottom center, and part — one hugging New Guinea toward the Philippines, the other climbing the middle of the page through Tarawa and Saipan. They close on Japan at the top. The red perimeter line of 1942 loops on the right like a high-water mark. The two dashed arrows at the very top never fired.