Meanwhile, evidence suggests that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA(N)), has aspirations to become a true ‘Blue Water Navy’, and is now building its third aircraft carrier, which reportedly will be the first PLA(N) carrier equipped with a catapult system and built completely by indigenous shipyards. While the United States Navy (US Navy), as the only global military power, has funded its fleet of 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers for fiscal year 2020, and the gas turbine engines of the United Kingdom’s (UK) second new carrier started rotating gently for the first time at the end of 2018, France and Germany 1 are evaluating the opportunity to design and build an aircraft carrier to shape the European Union’s role as a global security and peace force.Īt the same time, in the challenging region of the Pacific Ocean, the Japanese government announced in November 2018 their intent to upgrade its two Izumo-class helicopters carriers to support the F-35B Lightning II stealth strike-fighter. The Navy felt, however, that it alone was unable to make the necessary commitment in terms of air forces, due to the depletion of its air units in Rabaul.The political and military leaders of many seafaring nations with blue-water navies worldwide and strong maritime interests, in the effort to imagine the future of their military forces, could soon face the dilemma of whether or not to finance an aircraft carrier programme. The Japanese Navy High Command now realized that it would take more than a simple operation to retake Guadalcanal, and that controlling the air around the island was a prerequisite for success. This view began to change after the Battle of the Tenaru River on 21 August, when the Japanese Army's Ichiki Detachment, numbering some 900 men, made the first attempt to retake Henderson Field and was almost completely wiped out. On 12 August the Army and Navy High Commands agreed that the American landing on Guadalcanal was only a local tactical move, and the island could be easily recaptured. In their estimate of the world strategic situation in March 1942, the Japanese High Command had concluded that the Americans would not mount a major counter-attack before 1943.
The American counter-attack at Guadalcanal came as a complete surprise to the Japanese.
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