What was island hopping (飛び石作戦)?
— not attacked, but bypassed

Meaning

Island hopping — the "leapfrog" strategy — meant taking only the islands that mattered and passing over the ones in between, rather than assaulting the Pacific islands one after another in order.

An island that was passed over was not attacked. But no ships and no aircraft came to it either. Wotje Atoll, where Satō Tomigorō was stationed, was such a bypassed island.

How it worked

• Take the key islands — those usable as airfields or harbours were selected and assaulted.
• Skip the rest — heavily defended islands were passed by, to reduce casualties and save time.
• Cut the supply line — sea and air around a bypassed island were controlled, so nothing came in from outside.

In February 1944 it was the neighbouring Kwajalein Atoll that was taken. No one landed on Wotje. Instead, the ships stopped coming. Tomigorō's diary records:

Three months already, since we were cut off.

So what happened there

What is left from an island that was never attacked is not a record of combat. It is a record of daily life: seeds planted, a bath managed, thanks for two spoons someone carved — "Had two spoons made for me by Jōsui. Done. My thanks."

And on a page addressed to his family, he wrote down one thing he wanted to eat.

If only I could have a tendon from Kadoya. Even sour pickles would do.

The name of a shop in his home town, written out just like that. The record of a bypassed island runs in this order — what was eaten, what was lacking, what a man wanted to tell his family. Such places do not appear in war histories as famous battlefields. And yet people were there, keeping diaries.

Source: verbatim diary entries as published in the Nihira paper and on the Mizuki Shorin special page. Figures for the garrison and for survival vary widely between sources.

Fragments where this word appears

• Satō Tomigorō (Wotje Atoll, 64th Naval Guard Unit / notebooks) — ep. #010

(The detailed page for this fragment is not yet available in English.)

The 64th Naval Guard Unit → To the archive →

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