In 1942 the japanese empire exploded across the pacific conquering everything before them the only large land mass still held by the allies was australia which they desperately needed as a staging area for a planned us led counter attack the japanese knew of the importance of australia but lacked the resources to conquer it so they decided on the next best thing isolate australia from the united states by building an airfield on the island of guadalcanal from which planes could disrupt the allie