Published exactly one year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the December 1942 issue of the Bureau of Naval Personnel Information Bulletin — forerunner of All Hands — took stock of twelve months of naval warfare. The first year had opened with catastrophe: the battleships crippled or sunk at Pearl Harbor, Wake Island lost, the Philippines overrun, and Allied forces driven from the Dutch East Indies. Yet by December 1942 the strategic picture had transformed. The Doolittle Raid had carried the war to Tokyo in April; the Battle of the Coral Sea had checked the Japanese advance on Australia in May; the Battle of Midway in June had shattered four fleet carriers and turned the tide in the Pacific; and the Marines had landed on Guadalcanal in August, beginning a six-month struggle that would prove decisive. In November, Allied forces landed in French North Africa in Operation Torch, opening the Mediterranean theater. These seven pages survey the Navy’s losses, its victories, and the production effort that was remaking American naval power by the end of 1942.
Click to enlarge
